Gender in the History of Science

Instructor: Karen Rader
Fall 2000, Spring 1999

This course will examine how notions of masculinity and femininity have function as potent resources in the history of science, technology, and medicine since 1600. Wherever possible, attention will focus on concrete historical examples (e.g. biographical accounts, case studies in biological and medical research, engineering culture, etc.)

Genetics, Biotechnology, & Society

Instructor: Karen Rader
Fall 2000, Fall 1999, Fall 1998

This seminar will explore the science and technology of heredity in its historical, cultural, political, and ethical contexts. After a brief introduction to Mendel's ideas, we shall first discuss the different ways that genetic theories have been applied to solving social problems and used in support of particular views of race, gender, and class. Second, relying on primary and secondary historical accounts, we shall discuss the rise of molecular biology as an institutionalized discipline, relating medical, agricultural, legal, and industrial applications to changing patterns of university education and research, the funding of science, evolving academic-industrial and academic-state links. Finally, we shall examine the roles and responsibilities of biological scientists and genetic engineers, as they have been defined through particular ethical conflicts (e.g. human genome research, the patenting of transgenic engineering of animals, cloning), as well as through general public expectations and cultural perceptions of the field. The purpose of this course is two-fold: to acquaint students with the long history of important and controversial issues involving genetics in American life; and to examine and understand current political debates about the place of genetics and biotechnology in a democratic society.

Science and Film

Instructor: Karen Rader
Spring 2001, Spring 2000

This course will examine the medium of film as a window on the relations between art, science, and American society in the 20th century. Some of the questions we will seek to answer are: How have technological advances in film (both still photography and motion pictures) contributed to new understandings of scientific knowledge? Where do these understandings lie in relation to larger debates about the philosophy of visualization (in science and society-at-large)? What impact have 'scientist-hero' and 'scientist-villian' movies had on public understandings of the scientific enterprise - and ultimately, what does this tell us about the relations between science and art as cultural activities? Specific topics will include: early film use in science and art (the camera obscura and lantern slides); the technology of moving pictures as developed by Edison; MGM's series of scientist biopocs of the 1930's and 40's; Carl Akeley's nature film productions at the American Museum of Natual History; early scientific horrors (Frankenstein) and pre-war, post-war, and contemporary science fiction films; the government public health films of the 1920's and 1940's; Stanley Milgram's film of subjects undergoing his 1963 Obedience experiments; and Jane Goodall's landmark documentaries for National Geographic.

Biology & Society

Instructor: Karen Rader
1999-2000

From the emergence of sociobiology in the 1970s to the specter of human cloning in the 1990s, heated debates regarding the biological basis of human nature have raised important questions about the political and social dimensions of biological science. Sociobiology and theories of human heredity did not originate, however, in late twentieth-century America; the past provides many of examples where biology was used to justify particular views regarding race, class, and gender in a given society. This course will introduce students to that past, and to provide them with the historical and analytic frameworks necessary to critically examine contemporary controversies about biological determinism, the social authority of biological scientists, and most broadly, the proper relationship between science and society. Specific topics will range from ancient times to the present (including Aristotle’s theories of generation and 18th century anatomy texts) but will concentrate primarily on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: theories of evolution (including Darwin), eugenics, hereditarian theories of intelligence, the politics of birth control and the ethics of biotechnology.

Our initial efforts will be directed at familiarizing ourselves broadly with early attempts to understand life scientifically and with some of the various analytic perspectives one might employ to understand these developments. We will carefully examine historical case studies from ancient times to the late 19th century, through which we will begin to explore key questions and themes like:

- What counted as science or, more specifically, a scientific understanding of life in earlier periods?
- What have been the relations among Western cultural developments, the development of science, and the development of the science of life?
- What social effects did the science of life have? To what uses was it put and why?

We will end our first semester with a focus on early 20th century biology’s institutional and disciplinary transformations and their consequences for alternative understandings of life - both within the scientific community and in society-at-large.

Scientists at Work

Instructor: Karen Rader
1998-1999

The second half of this course will confront the myths and realities of scientific life by simultaneously examining the practices and the portrayals of scientists at work. Sources employed will include films, on-site examinations of scientific work in different contexts, historical and sociological studies, as well as fictional works and scientific-participant accounts. Our goal will be to gain further insights into the psychology of individual scientists, the sociology of the scientific community, the politics of research, and the relations between the scientific enterprise and culture-at-large.