Pre-HSS Roundup

The proprietor of SciLitera, a science, literature and culture website under development, contacted me about my review of Dava Sobel’s The Planets (which he read on Amazon, where it is now one of the Spotlight Reviews). He wants to put it on his site as well as possibly other reviews or articles in the future, and I would get a share of the (probably negligible) ad revenue. It’s nice to be noticed. (The 13/13 helpful votes on Amazon is also gratifying.)

I’ve submitted the NSF GRFP application for the last time. Hopefully it will go better than last time.

Meanwhile, classes are getting the better of me and soon the papers I have due before the end of the semester (for classmate review) will be raining down misery upon me. We’re through the short papers in Narrative History. My last paper was fun; I reconstructed a heliocentric/geocentric dialogue between a Galileo character and a Bellarmine character (mostly from correspondence) to show the irrational side of Galileo and the rational side of the Church position, basically to support a Feyerabendian view of the way science works (i.e., “anything goes”). It went over well. For my final paper in that class, I’m going to be writing about Kepler, and basically trying to illustrate all my favorite history/sociology/philosophy of science ideas though a very selective narrative of his life.

Narrative history vs. Insightful history, Time and Space

As much as I like John Demos’s Narrative History class (and as much as I’m learning about writing and style), I’ve come to realize that I have neither the desire nor the knack to be a narrative historian. Frankly, the more narrative, engaging, engrossing, lyrical the prose has been in the class (particularly the short essays my classmates and I have written), the less the content could possibly be historically interesting (according to my definition of interesting, of course). This week we wrote papers on 9/11, and the other paper were all very nicely written; some of them were really very much better than basically anything you would find in an academic work. Better than the narrative history books we’ve read so far, I thought. But you also would not find those ones in an academic work.

[Thanks go to the Subtle Doctor for his report on my classmates.]

For next week, our writing topic is totally open; we’re expected to apply these narrative methods we’ve been practicing to something in our own sphere of interest/knowledge. I haven’t actually done any research (e.g., the institutional history of Yale’s various biology departments or G. E. Hutchinson’s letters of recommendation) that involves a compelling story, so I’m going to have to basically retell a history of science story I’m familiar with [note: prepositions are for ending sentences with, no matter what Prof. Demos says]. But looking over my bookshelves, full of science stories I like so much, I find it hard to think of one I could retell with conviction, without explicit analysis. I’m afraid it will turn into one of those scientist-as-hero stories, the fight against which is exactly what makes history of science so interesting.

Meanwhile, I’m currently reading Stephen Kern’s The Culture of Time and Space for Ole Molvig’s class. We read a small part of it last semester for the Intro to History of Science class, and I found very little value in it; it tries to make massive connections across turn-of-the-century culture (1880-1918, precisely), incorporating art, literature, philosophy, science, technology, and whatever else Kern could find into a very loose framework analyzing how people experienced the concepts of time and space. One criticism we had was: it was so broad, but every time it touched on something we knew it seemed particularly weak, making the rest with which we were less familiar suspect as well. But starting from the beginning (and reading his circumspect introduction where he acknowledges the limits of his approach), I like it much better. Mainly because it’s well-written and it flows. Even if the broad connections are very weak and contingent on the sources he chose to include and not include (and they are), it does a great job giving an overview of how a relatively small canon of cultural figures fit into the emerging culture of modernity, and approaches them from an interesting (particularly for a historian of science) thematic perspective. It has neither the virtues of narrative prose nor the strengths of thesis-driven argument, but it’s a compelling presentation nonetheless.

Readings, Research, Lamarck stuff

Classes continue unabated; I’m almost back into the swing of things, as far as reading and working all the time.

I’ve not been particularly inspired by any readings lately, except Flatland. The Time Machine was also a good reread. I was also somewhat intrigued by Principles of Scientific Management; it’s surprisingly readable and it basically still informs a lot of management philosophy today. It’s a sort of capitalist manifesto.

For Narrative Histories, I read the superb The Murder of Helen Jewett. As far as garden-variety micro-history goes, it really doesn’t get much better (if you don’t mind reading about 1830’s NYC). Unfortunately, the next book was the dull Judge Sewall’s Apology, a masterful boringification of the Salem witch trials.

We’ve yet to read a whole book, or anything really insightful, in the sociology of knowledge course, but it gives me a chance to reflect on some the methods and approaches of sociology that I’m only slightly familiar with. I’m going to write my paper for that class on the role of letters of recommendation in science; last semester I wrote a research paper based on G Evelyn Hutchinson’s letters of recommendation, so I hope to be able to strengthen that paper with the insights of a more general look at recommendations. I’m not sure if any literature exists in sociology or if I’ll have to make it up as I go.

For Science, Technology and Modernity, I’m probably going to do my research paper on visual images in science pedagogy and popular science. It seems like abstract images conveying scientific content were really rare (especially at a non-expert level) before the mid-20th century. Graphs and charts were virtually non-existent in popular literature, and most scientific illustrations were obviously aiming for naturalistic representation of actual sights. So it seems like this shift toward more abstraction of concepts visually went along with the other changes that get lumped into “modernism” and “modernity.” We’ll see how well that thesis bears out once I get down to looking at lots of sources, and hopefully I can pin down the timeframe a little better.

Meanwhile, I’ve redone the Lamarck sticker; it’s slicker now, and I put it on t-shirts. I ordered one today and plan to wear it to the History of Science Society meeting.

beginning of the semester round-up

My classes have finally stabilized in terms of the people, and all four of my main classes are really great.

I’m going to try to do brief reviews of the books I read for each class. We’ll see how long that lasts.

In Ole’s Science, Technology and Modernity class, the undergrads are really bright, and all of them seem enthusiastic about it. Sometimes undergrad discussions can be frustrating, but the first two have gone really well in there. And Ole requires little library assignments each week, which are kind of fun and actually (I’m ashamed to say) useful for me; I’m definitely less experienced with different kinds of library sources than I should be. We read The Railway Journey this week, which I thought was really great.

Fabrication and Uses of Knowledge also looks to be very stimulating; it has one other grad student (a sociologist from Denmark) and (I think) three undergrads, all of whom seem to be able to contribute on a high enough level for the class to really get deep into the literature we’ll be reading. It seemed at first like the undergrads would be a problem, as the class divided into two sides about the definitions we were trying to work out for “Knowledge” and “Information,” but the discussion actually went somewhere and everyone left with a much better idea of those concepts than we started with. (Unfortunately, the room the class meets in is loud and stiflingly hot, but that should change once winter arrives and we can shut the windows without suffocating.)

As for Narrative Histories, the discussions are very enjoyable. The other garden-variety history courses I took last year were somewhat stressful for me, since every discussion really engaged with history beyond the book of the week. It was hard for me to contribute on the same level as the garden-variety historians and Americanists without knowing more history. But this class is really about ways of writing history, so my lack of historical knowledge doesn’t hold me back. However, so far I haven’t been taken with either of the readings. I really like the concept of narrative history, so the reading have been a let-down (but great discussion fodder). We read Mirror in the Shrine last week and Dead Certainties this week, and for both books I simply couldn’t bring myself to care much about the stories being told (although most of the latter is moderately entertaining).

John’s Intro to the History of Medicine and Public Health will be enjoyable (the first week’s discussion went just fine), but I’m also afraid it will retread a lot of the ground we covered last year in his Grounding of Modern Medicine. The books are mostly different, covering a broader spectrum of medical history, but it will still focus more on “craft issues” of how to write (and more often how not to write) books on the history of medicine than on the actual content of the history of medicine. The presence of several non-historians will hopeful help to mitigate that, but even if it doesn’t the books will be good and the discussions will still be of some value to me despite some repetition. The first book we read was Medicine Before Science. Well, they read it; I read only a third, but I’m auditing so I don’t feel bad. But I would like to finish it some time. The last third was about the various and sundry philosophical systems of medicine that arose as the Latin tradition splintered; everyone else hated that part but it seemed from their descriptions to be the most interesting to me.

Meanwhile, I’m considering going to an alternate colloquia series for a few times this semester; every talk but one for HSHM will be history of medicine (and that will be about Kinsey, too social science for my tastes generally, but also provocative enough to make it worthwhile). Meeting at the same time is a history seminar series on “Transitions to Modernity,” which they scheduled also on Mondays at 4:30. It’s staggered oddly, so some of them conflict with Holmes Workshop talks and some with HSHM colloquia; I’m less inclined to skip workshops out of respect for my immediate colleagues. It’s frustrating after last year’s colloquium line-up, which included some really prominent historians of science (and some less prominent ones who gave really great talks).

Classes

My classes are set now: I’m auditing John Warner’s course and taking the others from the top 4 below. I’m also sitting in on Humans and Animals Since Darwin with Bettyann Kevles. In particular, I think the Demos and Molvig classes will be really great.

Ole also mentioned the possibility of starting a reading group on popular science where we would read contemporary science writing, since he and I are both quite interested in that. I hope we can rustle up some more people and get that going. I think it might even be eligible for some financial support, although I’m not sure if we could buy the books with the money. Of course, I have an enormous backlog of popular science books from the remaindered shelf at Hastings in Oklahoma, which grows every time I visit. I count at least 20 on my bookshelf that are unread, plus a few legitimate history of science books. And I only buy the very most interesting ones… I feel like a cheapskate for not buying twice as many at those prices. Maybe I can do some sort of research paper based on reading an enormous number of these things. That would be convenient.

On a sadder note, Ed Larson canceled the talk he was supposed to give next week. Apparently he’s doing an interview with Jon Stewart instead. I guess all the ID stuff in the news made him too hot a commodity for a mere Yale colloquium. I was really looking forward to meeting him. But he’s been in the news lately, partially clarifying some of the questions I had for him:
Washington Post
LA Times
And there was a New York Times article that is now in the pay-for-access archives, where he discussed briefly his reasons for leaving the Discovery Institute (basically they were becoming too political for him, he says). I would have liked to ask him about his religious views, though.

Maupertuis on Wikipedia

I finally finished Mary Terrall’s marvelous “The Man Who Flattened the Earth,” a biography of Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis. Anyone who has read even a small part of that book could verify how bad the old wikipedia entry was. I’ve taken the liberty of making some improvements, although it could still use some work.

Meanwhile, school starts up for me next Wednesday. I’m still not totally sure what classes I’ll be taking, but the frontrunners are:

  1. Narrative and Other Histories – John Demos. I’m fairly sure I’ll take this, as I’ve heard great things about it.
  2. Fabrication and Uses of Knowledge – Ulrich Schreiterer. A sociology of knowledge class would be great, but I’m not sure how undergrad-oriented it is.
  3. Intro to History of Medicine and Public Health – John Warner. All the people in my year were supposed to take this last year, but Warner taught “Grounding of Modern Medicine” instead. This one will have all the new first-years and should be fun, but I’m not certain he wants people who took the other class last year to take this.
  4. Science, Technology and Modernity – Ole Molvig. This is a research seminar and Ole says it worked well with two grad students and the rest undergrads last year, where the grad students helped push the class along. The topic is something historical on the interaction of people with some concrete aspect of science and/or technology.
  5. Political Economy of Nature – Steven Stoll. This class is cross-listed History and Forestry & Environmental Studies, and it deals with the foundations of political economy and the historical ways nations have dealt with resources.

I’d like to take the top three, but I might have to take one of the last two to fulfill a research requirement. Actually, if I could manage all of the top 4 that would be great. If I could audit John Warner’s class and take all the others but the last that might work.

Also on the radar for sitting in but not actually enrolling for credit are:

  • Archeaometallurgy
  • Nicholas of Cusa and Alberti
  • Introduction to Geochemistry
  • Humans and Animals since Darwin
  • Economic Sociology