Curriculum for Graduate Study
HOS 591 / HIS 591 The Scientific Revolution
Staff
Problems in the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, including both the development of scientific thought and practice and the changing role of science in the surrounding culture. The precise topic varies from year to year; representative subjects include mathematics, mechanics, experimentation, and Isaac Newton.
HOS 592 / HIS 592 Science in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Staff
Problems in the history of science before the Scientific Revolution, including both the development of scientific thought and practice and the changing role of science in the surrounding culture. The precise topic varies from year to year; representative subjects include medieval mechanics, Ptolemaic and Copernican astronomy, and the relation between medieval and Renaissance science.
HOS 593 / HIS 593 Science from the Enlightenment to the Present
Staff
Problems in the history of science since the Scientific Revolution. The precise topic varies from year to year; representative subjects include the history of the human sciences and science in colonial context.
HOS 594 / HIS 594 History of Medicine
Katja Guenther
Problems in the History of Medicine and the Medical Sciences. Topic varies from year to year. Representative subjects would include the history of health and disease, medicine and the body, and the history of the mind and mental illness.
HOS 595 / HIS 595 Introduction to the Historiography of Science
Angela N.H. Creager
An introduction for beginning graduate students to the central problems and principal literature of the history of science from the Scientific Revolution through the 20th century. The course is organized around several different methodological approaches, and readings include important works by anthropologists, sociologists and philosophers, as well as by Historians of Science.
HOS 596 / HIS 596 History of the Life Sciences
D. Graham Burnett, Angela N. H. Creager
Problems in the history of the life sciences. The precise topic varies from year to year; representative subjects include the construction and reception of Darwin’s theory of evolution, the history of physiology, and the emergence of molecular biology.
HOS 597 / HIS 597 History of the Physical and Mathematical Sciences
Michael D. Gordin
Problems in the development of the physical and mathematical sciences. The precise topic varies from year to year; representative subjects include the history of thermodynamics, chemistry in the 19th century, and the physical sciences since 1900.
HOS 598 / HIS 598 Introduction to the Historiography of Technology
Emily Thompson
This graduate reading course will introduce students to scholarly literature in the History of Technology. Readings include classic texts as well as more recent scholarship, and demonstrate a variety of approaches to the task of thinking and writing about technology from a historical perspective..
HOS 599 / HIS 595 Special Topics in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Staff
Explores specialized topics in the history of science. The precise topic varies from year to year.
Program Seminar
Staff
Focuses on current problems in and approaches to the historiography of science. Most meetings take the form of discussions of research papers, dissertation chapters, and other forms of research-in-progress by graduate students and faculty members. Some meetings are devoted to the discussion of published work by scholars outside the program. All program graduate students in residence are expected to attend the seminar.
Pertinent Courses in Allied Departments
Anthropology
- 415 The Anthropology of Science
Philosophy
- 520 Logic
- 527 Philosophy of the Social Sciences
- 531 Philosophy of Science
- 536 Philosophy of Mathematics
- 538 Philosophy of Physics
Click here for History of Science courses currently being offered