Undergraduate Study in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine

The department has nine full-time faculty whose research specialties and teaching interests cover the increasingly important roles played by science, medicine, and technology in shaping the world’s history.  The courses they offer have no prerequisites and can be taken by students from across the university.

History majors may now choose to concentrate in Science, Medicine, and Technology.  Course offerings in this concentration range broadly across the centuries, and across the regions of the globe – from ancient Greek medicine to the Scientific Revolution in Europe, from ancient Chinese medicine to the social and moral implications of contemporary biotechnology in the U.S.  The concentration has been deliberately crafted so as to allow students considerable flexibility in choosing courses according to their own particular areas of greatest interest. Students may meet the requirement by taking five courses from the SMT list. Up to two courses of these five courses may be taken outside the department in such fields as Anthropology, Classics, English, or Mathematics, as well as in the interdisciplinary major of Medicine, Health, and Society.

Below is a list of courses relevant to the study of SMT, first from the history department, and second from other departments.  Majors choosing the SMT concentration may also petition for the inclusion of other courses, as appropriate, with approval of the director of undergraduate studies.

Courses (History Department):

HIST 148. (New in Spring 2013). Darwinian Revolution. Official description will be inserted October 2012. [3]

HIST 149. The Modern Human Sciences. (Formerly 207). Sciences of the human in the U.S. and Europe, 1870 to the present. Measurement and testing; classifications of human types by race, gender, and sexual orientation; institutional power and discipline; differentiations of the normal and abnormal in psychology, psychiatry, medicine, sociology, anthropology, and sexology. Serves as repeat credit for students who completed 207 prior to fall 2008. [3] (P)

HIST 150. History of Modern Sciences and Society. The end of the Scientific Revolution to the present. Sciences arising from the fields of Natural Philosophy (physics, astronomy, mathematics, and chemistry) and Natural History (geology and the life sciences). The clockwork universe, atomism and the Chemical Revolution; evolutionary theory (physical, geological, and biological); thermodynamics; and quantum theory. Colonial empires, industry, professional specialization, cultural modernism, and nuclear fear. [3] (P)

HIST 151. The Scientific Revolution. The production and dissemination of knowledge of the natural world during the period of the Scientific Revolution, covering roughly from 1450 to 1700. Cosmology and astrology, navigation, alchemy, religion and philosophy, and medicine. [3] (P)

History 153. Superhuman Civilization. Trends in human biological enhancement through the re-engineering of basic physical and mental traits. Debates over transhumanism, designer babies, neuroethics, and technological
determinism. Long-term implications for social justice and human identity. [3] (P)

HIST 216. Medicine in Islam. Emergence of medicine in the Islamic world. Links with other traditions. Doctors and society; conventional medical practice in hospitals; prophetic medicine; Jewish and Christian doctors in Islam; pharmacology; developments in the nineteenth-century. No credit for students who have completed 115F section 21. [3] (INT)

HIST 280. Modern Medicine. (Formerly 204). Scientific, social, and cultural factors influencing the rise of modern medicine. Europe and the U.S., 1750 to the present. Serves as repeat credit for students who completed 204 prior to fall 2008. [3] (P)

HIST 281. Women, Health, and Sexuality. (Formerly 205). Women as patients and healers in the U.S. from 1750 to the present. Topics include women’s diseases and treatments; medical constructions of gender, sexuality; childbirth, birth control, abortion; midwives, nurses, and doctors. Serves as repeat credit for students who completed 205 prior to fall 2008. [3] (US)

HIST 283. Medicine, Culture, and the Body. (Formerly 206). (Also listed as Anthropology 260) Concepts of the human body from historical and cross-cultural perspectives. Exploration of experiences, representations, and medical theories of the body in birth, death, health, and illness in Western and non-Western societies. Comparison of methodologies of anthropology and history. Serves as repeat credit for students who completed 206 prior to fall 2008. [3] (P)

HIST 284a. Epidemics in History. How infectious diseases shape history. European and American responses to disease from the medieval Black Death to HIV/AIDS. Offered on a graded basis only. [3] (P)

HIST 284b. Health and the African American Experience. Disparities in the health care of African Americans, the training of black professionals, and the role of black medical institutions. The intersection between black civic involvement and health care delivery; the disproportionate impact of disease and epidemics within the African American population. [3] (US)

HIST 284c. The Psychological Century. The consolidation and rise to prominence of a modern psychological perspective on human nature, motivation, desire, and need in the twentieth century. Freud and the debut of therapeutic culture. Dreams, sexuality, interiority, gendered selves. Psychologies of affluence, the invention of identity, the new narcissism, and perspectives on managerial effectiveness. The virtues and liabilities of the twentieth-century expressive self. No credit for students who have completed 115F section 15. [3] (HCA)

HIST 285W. Science, Technology, and Modernity. Social, cultural, intellectual, and artistic responses to the challenges posed by modern science and technology from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Offered on a graded basis only. [3] (P)

Courses from other departments that count toward the SMT area of concentration for history majors:
ANTH 274. Health and Disease in Ancient Populations. Paleopathology of mummies and skeletons. Skeletal evidence for violence and warfare. Gender and social status differences in diet, disease, and activity patterns to reconstruct ancient social organization. Biological relationships among ancient and modern populations. Ethics and federal law in the study of human remains. Laboratory analysis of skeletons. [3] (MNS)

Asian Studies 230. Chinese Medicine. (Formerly HIST 282). Historical encounters and divergences between medicine in China and in the West. Chinese medical classics, including the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor and early herbal manuals. The creation of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the People's Republic of China and the emergence of Chinese medicine as alternative medicine in the U.S. Serves as repeat credit for students who completed HIST 282 prior to fall 2012 or HIST 248 prior to fall 2008. [3] (P)

ASTR 203. Theories of the Universe. The interdependence of cosmological theories and religious teachings from the eighth century BCE to the end of the seventeenth century. Examines scientific works and religious texts, including those of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Copernicus, Luther, Galileo, and Newton. [3] (P)

ENGL 243, 243W. Literature, Science, and Technology. The relationship of science and technology to literature, film, and popular media. Focus on such topics as digital technology, genetics, and the representation of science in particular periods, genres, movements, and critical theories. [3] (P)

MATH 252. History of Mathematics. Major developments in mathematics from ancient times to the early 20th century. Emphasis both on the historical perspective and the mathematics; assignments include many exercises and theorems. Prerequisite: multivariable calculus, and either linear algebra or 223. Especially recommended for teacher candidates. [3] (MNS)

MHS 230. Early Medicine and Culture. Health, healing, disease, andthe body from antiquity to the Enlightenment. [3] (P)

MHS 231. Chinese Society and Medicine. (approved for mass variance F2011, not officially in 2011-12 catalog). Medicine and health in contemporary China. Social organization of medical care, social determinants of health and disease, social construction of health and disease, and health-related social problems. Serves as repeat credit for students who completed 290 section 3 in fall 2010 and section 1 in fall 2011. [3] (SBS)

RLST 202. Natural Science and the Religious Life. How scientific discoveries and religious teachings are related. Descriptions of the physical universe from Aristotle through Albert Einstein are compared to contemporaneous definitions of the moral life by religious thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Immanuel Kant, and Martin Buber. [3] (P)

Other courses of interest (these do not count towards the history major):
PHIL 244. Philosophy and the Natural Sciences. Philosophical issues in the methodology, conceptual structure, patterns of explanation, historical development, and cultural impact of the natural sciences. Metaphysical and ethical implications. [3] (P)

SPAN 274. Literature and Medicine. Modern intersections of literature and medicine in Latin America. From the social hygiene literature of the nineteenth century to the autobiographical disease narrative of the late twentieth century. Prerequisite 203. [3] (P)