Essential knowledge and critical perspective to understand today's Digital World. The history and social impact of the digital revolution, including security, surveillance, "virtual reality," and the future of the Internet.

How have people explained where life came from and how it has developed over time? We examine controversies over life's origins, the Holocene extinction, human population growth, the Dust Bowl and soil conservation, DDT and falcon repatriation, and disease and responses to pandemics. Evolution, natural theology. Ecosystems.

Technology is an enormous force in our society, and has become so important that in many ways it seems to have a life of its own. This course uses historical case studies to demonstrate that technology is not autonomous, but a human activity, and that people and societies made choices about the technologies they developed and used. It asks how technological differences between nations influenced their different courses of development, and why some societies seemed to advance while others did not. We ask how technological choices can bring about consequences greater than people expected, and how we might use this knowledge in making our own technological choices. In particular, we explore the historical background, development, and character of the most widespread technological systems the world has known, from prehistoric stone tool societies, through Egypt and the pyramids, ancient Greece and Rome, the explosion of Islam, and the dynamic and often violent technologies of medieval Europe.

This course explores the many technological systems that have come to span our globe, alongside the widespread persistence of traditional technologies. We start with the earliest glimmerings of modernity and industrialization, and move on in time to the building of global technological networks. How have people changed their worlds through technologies like steam engines and electronics? Is it a paradox that many traditional agricultural and household technologies have persisted? How have technologies of war remade the global landscape? We ask how business and government have affected technological entrepreneurs, from railroads to technologies of global finance. We end by considering the tension between technologies that threaten our global environment and technologies that offer us hopes of a new world.

Development and changing nature of sciences in their cultural context. Babylonian/Greek science. Decline/transmission of Greek science. Scientific Revolution (1500-1700) from Copernicus to Newton.

How scientists like Darwin and Einstein taught us to think about nature; everything from space, time and matter to rocks, plants, and animals.

Introduction to intellectual/social history of European/American medicine, health care from classical antiquity through 18th century.

Introduction to intellectual/social history of European/American medicine, health care in 19th/20th centuries.

Introduction to historical relationship of human health and the environment. How natural/human-induced environmental changes have, over time, altered our experiences with disease and our prospects for health.

Women's historical roles as healers, patients, research subjects, health activists. Biological determinism, reproduction, mental health, nursing, women physicians, public health reformers, alternative practitioners. Gender disparities in diagnosis, treatment, research, careers. Assignments allow students to explore individual interests.

Body/soul in medieval theology/cosmology. Religious conceptions of body/soul. Medical conceptions in medieval world. Medieval/renaissance psychology. Medical astrology and its consequences. Medical normal/abnormal body. Medicine of reproduction and sexual identity. Death, burial, dissection, and resurrection in medical/religious perspective. Macrocosmic/microcosmic body. Limits to human power/authority over body. Anatomical/chemical body/spirit.

Seminar. Reading/discussion, individual directed research project with oral presentation. Students meet in peer groups and with instructor. prereq: Sr, instr consent

Science and technology influence nearly every aspect of our daily lives as well as the communities in which we live, both locally and globally. How did science and technology become such ubiquitous and powerful aspects of American industry, government policy, public life, and international negotiation? What are the responsibilities of scientists and engineers who play a critical role in creating and maintaining these elements? How can the broader public position itself to provide encouragement, insight and critique of the research and applications of science and technology? This course is intended to examine these questions by exploring historical case studies that highlight ethical, political, and social issues that give meaning to, and in turn, are shaped by science and technology. Beginning with the role of scientists as professional experts in the Progressive era, we consider how ideals of scientific management impacted animal lives and workers = bodies. Ethical choices frame the application of expertise and require attention and specific decision-making. Using eugenics as an example, we will reflect upon the interplay between the often naïve understanding of heredity and public policy and continue discussion into the application of contemporary genetic testing. Ethics are framed in social and political settings, and we will follow sometimes surprisingly comparable developments in Russia and the United States, with particular attention to large-scale engineering projects in the 1920s and 1930s and the space race in the 1950s and 1960s in order to understand how these reflected, or failed to reflect, risk and human life. This course meets the Historical Perspectives, Civic Life and Ethics, and Writing Intensive requirements as defined by the Council on Liberal Education. Along with Student Learning Outcomes, these requirements will help you continue to build critical tools for your work at the university as well as ways to evaluate and create knowledge in and beyond your intended career area.

Technology is an enormous force in our society, and has become so important that in many ways it seems to have a life of its own. This course uses historical case studies to demonstrate that technology is not autonomous, but a human activity, and that people and societies made choices about the technologies they developed and used. It asks how technological differences between nations influenced their different courses of development, and why some societies seemed to advance while others did not. We ask how technological choices can bring about consequences greater than people expected, and how we might use this knowledge in making our own technological choices. In particular, we explore the historical background, development, and character of the most widespread technological systems the world has known, from prehistoric stone tool societies, through Egypt and the pyramids, ancient Greece and Rome, the explosion of Islam, and the dynamic and often violent technologies of medieval Europe.

This course explores the many technological systems that have come to span our globe, alongside the widespread persistence of traditional technologies. We start with the earliest glimmerings of modernity and industrialization, and move on in time to the building of global technological networks. How have people changed their worlds through technologies like steam engines and electronics? Is it a paradox that many traditional agricultural and household technologies have persisted? How have technologies of war remade the global landscape? We ask how business and government have affected technological entrepreneurs, from railroads to technologies of global finance. We end by considering the tension between technologies that threaten our global environment and technologies that offer us hopes of a new world.

Development and changing nature of sciences in their cultural context. Babylonian/Greek science. Decline/transmission of Greek science. Scientific Revolution (1500-1700) from Copernicus to Newton.

How scientists like Darwin and Einstein taught us to think about nature; everything from space, time and matter to rocks, plants, and animals.

Topics specified in Class Schedule

Three intersecting themes analyzed from 1700s to the present: women in science, sexual and gendered concepts in modern sciences, and impact of science on conceptions of sexuality and gender in society.

Sherlock Holmes, in solving his cases, is relying on a pattern of reasoning known as Inference to the Best Explanation (acronym: IBE). Holmes?s explanation of how some crime was committed tends to be so convincing that it counts as evidence that it was actually committed that way. Although our use of it is seldom as clever as Holmes?s, we rely on IBE all the time in everyday life. So do scientists. In science, however, IBE tends to be less reliable. That a theory explains a range of phenomena does not make that theory true. In other words, we cannot simply take a theory?s explanatory power as evidence for it. Yet, scientists tend to put great emphasis on their theories? explanatory power if they want to convince others of it. Which raises the question: What exactly is the relation between explanation and evidence in science? In this seminar, we will examine this relation, using examples from everyday life, crime fiction and the history of science (involving such luminaries as Copernicus, Newton, Darwin and Einstein). To improve our understanding of IBE we will contrast it with a probabilistic account of evaluating evidence known as Bayesianism.

How technology came to medicine's center-stage. Impact on production of medical knowledge, professionalization, development of institutions/industry, health policy, and gender/race disparities in health care.

How technology came to medicine?s center-stage. Impact on medical practice, institutions, consumers, production of medical knowledge, professionalization, health policy, gender/race disparities in health care. prereq: instr consent

Changing conceptions of life and aims and methods of biology; changing relationships between biology and the physical and social sciences; broader intellectual and cultural dimensions of developments in biology.

Changing conceptions of life and aims and methods of biology; changing relationships between biology and the physical and social sciences; broader intellectual and cultural dimensions of developments in biology.

In this course we grapple with the impact of Darwin's theory of evolution in the scientific community and beyond. We'll examine and engage the controversies that have surrounded this theory from its inception in the 19th century through its applications in the 21st. What made Darwin a Victorian celebrity, a religious scourge, an economic sage and a scientific hero? We'll look closely at the early intellectual influences on theory development; study the changing and dynamic relationship between science and religion; and critically analyze the application of Darwin's theory to questions of human nature and behavior.

In this course we grapple with the impact of Darwin's theory of evolution in the scientific community and beyond. We'll examine and engage the controversies that have surrounded this theory from its inception in the 19th century through its applications in the 21st. What made Darwin a Victorian celebrity, a religious scourge, an economic sage and a scientific hero? We'll look closely at the early intellectual influences on theory development; study the changing and dynamic relationship between science and religion; and critically analyze the application of Darwin's theory to questions of human nature and behavior.

We examine environmental ideas, sustainability, conservation history; critique of the human impact on nature; empire and power in the Anthropocene; how the science of ecology has developed; and modern environmental movements around the globe. Case studies include repatriation of endangered species; ecology and evolutionary theory; ecology of disease; and climate change.

We examine environmental ideas, sustainability, conservation history; critique of the human impact on nature; empire and power in the Anthropocene; how the science of ecology has developed; and modern environmental movements around the globe. Case studies include repatriation of endangered species; ecology and evolutionary theory; ecology of disease; and climate change.

American culture(s) and technology, pre-Columbian times to present. Artisanal, biological, chemical, communications, energy, environment, electronic, industrial, military, space and transportation technologies explained in terms of economic, social, political and scientific causes/effects.

Development of American technology in its cultural/intellectual context from 1790 to present. Transfer of technology to America. Establishment of an infrastructure promoting economic growth. Social response to technological developments.

Science played a central role in taking scattered imperial colonies in North America to world power in just four centuries. This course investigates people, policies, and knowledge-making in a culture whose diversity was a critical part of its expanding capacities. It begins by examining the differences in ways of knowing as well as shared knowledge between Native Americans and Europeans and concludes by discussing how a powerful nation's science and technology shaped international relations. Class, race, ethnicity, and gender provided for a range of perspectives that contributed to science alongside social and economic developments. Online assignments, films and images, along with primary and secondary source readings provide the basis for class discussion.

The British colonies of North America were founded in precisely the same centuries as a revolution in European’s understanding of nature, transformed by the ideas of Galileo, Newton, and Linnaeus and by the technologies of the industrial revolution. Native Americans and African Americans had their own knowledge of nature, and their close understanding intersected with the increasingly scientific techniques brought with European settlers and enhanced the survival and intellectual capacities of the newcomers. By demonstrating the diversity of scientists in the ever changing demographics of an immigrant nation, the course argues that this diversity and the capacities of newcomers contributed to the national success in science and engineering. The engagement with science at points were used to try to limit access by women or African-Americans, but sciences was also used to discredit false theories through ever expanding emphasis on empiricism as well as attention to the social and economic consequences of innovation. The goal is to demonstrate those historical linkages in particular places and institutions as they influenced and reinforced specific scientific work, while, at the same time, being attentive to how scientific ideas and practices were shaped by American culture.

In addition to examining the idea of ethics itself, this course will examine the ethical questions embodied in specific historical events, technological systems, and scientific enterprises. Commonly, technology is assumed to be the best engineered solution for a particular goal and (good) science is supposed to be objective; however, this is never truly the case, values and moral choices underlie all of our systems for understanding and interacting with the world around us. These values and choices are almost always contentious. Through a series of historical case studies we will grapple with the big issues of right and wrong and the role of morality in a technological world. Our goal will be to learn to question and think critically about the things we create, the tools we use, and the ideology and practice of science.

Historical issues involving ethics in science. Ethical problems posed by modern science/technology, including nuclear energy, chemical industry, and information technologies.

Ethical issues in engineering research and engineers' public responsibility/practice, using historical cases; historical development of engineering as a vocation/profession; ethical implications of advanced engineering systems such as nuclear weaponry and networked communications.

Engineering ethics in historical context, including the rise of professional engineering societies; ethical problems in engineering research and engineers' public responsibility; ethical implications of advanced engineering systems such as the production of nuclear weapons; development of codes of ethics in engineering.

Understanding the origins of our own culture of Modern Science in the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Newton's ambiguous legacy; science as wonder and spectacle; automata and monsters; early theories of sex and gender; empire and scientific expeditions; reshaping the environment; inventing human sciences; Frankenstein and the limits of science and reason.

Understanding the origins of our own culture of Modern Science in the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Newton's ambiguous legacy; science as wonder and spectacle; automata and monsters; early theories of sex and gender; empire and scientific expeditions; reshaping the environment; inventing human sciences; Frankenstein and the limits of science and reason.

The transition from classical to modern physics (relativity, quantum) and its architects (from Planck and Einstein to Heisenberg and Schrödinger). The WWII bomb projects in the US and in Germany. Post-war developments (solid state, particle physics). Prereq: calculus or permission from the instructor.

The transition from classical to modern physics (relativity, quantum) and its architects (from Planck and Einstein to Heisenberg and Schrödinger). The WWII bomb projects in the US and in Germany. Post-war developments (solid state, particle physics). Prereq: calculus or permission from the instructor.

Developments in the last 150 years; evolution of hardware and software; growth of computer and semiconductor industries and their relation to other business areas; changing relationships resulting from new data-gathering and analysis techniques; automation; social and ethical issues.

Developments in last 150 years; evolution of hardware and software; growth of computer and semiconductor industries and their relation to other businesses; changing relationships resulting from new data-gathering and analysis techniques; automation; social and ethical issues.

Guided individual reading or study. prereq: instr consent

TBD prereq: instr consent

Guided individual reading or study.