Past Courses

Spring 2007 | Fall 2006

Spring 2007

HSHM 680b, History of Chinese Science. William Summers. Th 1.30-3.20
A study of the major themes in Chinese scientific thinking from antiquity to the twentieth century. Emphasis on non-Western concepts of nature and the development of science in China, East-West scientific exchanges, and China's role in modern science.

HSHM 702b, Introduction to the History of Science. Ole Molvig. T 1.30-3.20
Study of secondary literature, recent and older, in the history of the physical life sciences from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. Students acquire familiarity both with the development of science in general and of its major branches, including its content, instruments and methods, and social-institutional settings, and an acquaintance with various approaches that historians have followed in interpreting these events.

HSHM 918b, Research Seminar in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences. John Harley Warner and Bruno Strasser. M 1.30-3.20
An exploration of research methods and the craft of writing the history of medicine and the life sciences. Participants are expected to produce full-length research papers, and these individual research programs are the central focus of the group's discussions.

Fall 2006

HSHM 622a, Science, Technology, and Modernity. Ole Molvig. W 3.30-5.20
The seminar explores the intersections of science, technology, and culture from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th. Participants are encouraged to integrate a detailed understanding of technical and scientific developments with an informed reading of a variety of social, intellectual, and artistic responses to the challenges posed by modern science and technology. Graduate students complete additional readings and research in consultation with instructor.

HSHM 635a, Science, Arms, and the State . Daniel Kevles. M 1.30-3.20
This seminar examines the varied ways bodies and machines have been imagined and represented in the modern period in Europe and the United States, with examples from biology, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and computer science. Using primary materials from a variety of scientific and cultural sources, including literature and film, topics include the organism in nineteenth-century biology and romanticism; standardized and mechanized bodies; prosthetics, body enhancements, and movement technologies; machine models of the mind and their critics; the cyborg as technological and cultural icon; and virtual bodies in cyberspace.

HSHM 637a, Race and Medicine in America, 1800-2000. Susan Lederer. Th 1.30-3.20
An examination of race and medicine in America, primarily but not exclusively focused on African Americans' encounters with the health care system. Topics include slavery and health; doctors, immigrants, and epicemics; the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the use of minorities as research subjects; and race and genetic disease.

HSHM 640a, Molecules, Life, Disease: 20th Century. Bruno Strasser. MW 11.30-12:20
This course explores the transformation of the life sciences in the 20th century. It focuses on the rise of the "molecular vision of life" and disease, emphasizing its relationship to broader intellectual, social, cultural and political changes. It discusses the rich and varied historiography of molecular biology and reflects on its role in the making professional identities, collective memories and disciplinary boundaries. A two-hour graduate discussion section will develop themes addressed during the course.

HSHM 676a, The Engineering and Ownership of Life. Daniel Kevles. T 1.30-3.20
The development of biological knowledge and control in relation to intellectual property rights in living organisms. Topics include agribusiness, medicine, biotechnology, and patent law.

HSHM 701a, Introduction to the History of Medicine and Public Health. John Harley Warner. M 1.30-3.20
An examination of the variety of approaches to the social and cultural history of medicine and public health. Readings are drawn from recent literature in the field, sampling writings on health care, illness experiences, and medical cultures in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia from antiquity to the twentieth century. Topics include the role of gender, class, ethnicity, race, region, and religion in the experience of health care and sickness; the intersection of lay and professional understandings of the body; and the role of the marketplace in shaping professional identities and patient expectations.

HSHM 732a, Infection, Public Health, and the State. Frank Snowden. Th 3.30-5.20
This course is a comparative examination of public health strategies adopted by Western nations since 1800 with regard to high-impact infectious diseases--cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, syphilis, malaria, polio, and HIV/AIDS. The course begins with "plague regulations" and then explores such alternative policies as vaccination, the sanatorium, the sanitation idea, the regulation of prostitution, health education, and the reporting and tracing of cases. Attention is also given to state planning to confront the threat of bioterrorism and to the present emergency in sub-Saharan Africa of malaria, TB, and HIV/AIDS. The class considers the strategies of the World Health Organization and of national governments to confront the crisis. This is a reading the discussion class, but it can be taken as a research seminar with the permission of the instructor. There are no prerequisites, and no prior knowledge is assumed.

HSHM 914a or b, Research Tutorial I. By arrangement with faculty.

HSHM 915a or b, Research Tutorial II. By arrangement with faculty.

HSHM 920a or b, Independent Reading. By arrangement with faculty.

HSHM 930a or b, Independent Research. By arrangement with faculty.