Department of Science and Technology Studies
HPSC0081 Science in the Nineteenth Century
1. Module syllabus v2
2020-21 session • Module tutor: Dr Jenny Bulstrode • Module tutor: Dr Cristiano Turbil • Module tutor: Professor Joe Cain
2. Description
The nineteenth century saw the origin of much of what we might identify as “modern” scientific and technological research and practice. Laboratories, factories explorations, empires – all had scientific significance and all were paramount in nineteenth century science. This is also perhaps the period which has enjoyed most sustained attention from historians of science. This course will give a critical introduction to some major themes of nineteenth century science, from a range of historical approaches. This year we’re concentrating on global histories of science.
3. Key information
3.1 Digital resources
Type Location Moodle moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=7484 Timetable tinyurl.com/hpsc0081 ReadingLists@UCL tinyurl.com/read0081 HPSC0081 Science in the Nineteenth Century 2020-21 syllabus
3.2 Module tutors
Tutor Dr Jenny Bulstrode Email [email protected] Web ucl.ac.uk/sts/bulstrode Office hours email tutor to book an appointment Tutor Dr Cristiano Turbil Email [email protected] Web tinyurl.com/turbil Office hours email tutor to book an appointment Tutor (Convenor) Professor Joe Cain Email [email protected] Web ucl.ac.uk/sts/cain Office hours book via tinyurl.com/profjoecain
4. Aims and objectives
4.1 aims
This is a Masters-level module. HPSC0081 pursues several kinds of goals. First, this is a module about the history of science and technology. This includes not only the substance of science, but also the people, places, contexts and consequences that surround and help to shape the course of events. Time is strictly limited in this module, so we’ve made some choices about how to focus the curriculum. Content aims are straightforward: • identify key themes in 19thC science, both regarding content and historiography • study this period in an integrated way, combining written sources, material artifacts, physical geography, and cultural geography • while the focus is primarily on the British diaspora, this module will integrate some limited material from other contexts and geographies The nineteenth century is a subject given considerable attention in English-speaking academic communities. The secondary literature is enormous. Another aim is to further develop the ability to assess interpretative work and relate evidence to interpretations. Primary sources will make up some of the essential readings. The aim is to promote a direct encounter with the activity in this period. Students are expected to further develop their skills working with original source materials: critical reading of testimony and evidence, plus critical reflection on their interpretation and extension. They also will be expected to develop further research skills to integrate archives, museum collections, and digital resources.
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4.2 objectives a. Knowledge By the end of this module students should be able to: • demonstrate key themes in 19thC science, both in content and historiography • demonstrate an ability to research historical topics, including collecting and assessing primary sources, and relating primary sources to historiographical themes, • demonstrate an ability to test historiographical arguments and develop relational points • demonstrate professional-level research skills that integrate archives, museum collections, and digital resources b. Transferrable and Key Skills By the end of this module students should be able to: • demonstrate the ability to critically interpret both primary and secondary sources • demonstrate skill in historical reasoning and comparative analysis • demonstrate skill collecting primary materials relevant to the 19thC • relate geographic and architectural knowledge to other types of historical artifacts • approach new material in this course’s domain from a historical perspective and with a critical historian's eye • demonstrate critical analysis of science communication and public engagement over a variety of venues
5. Module plan
Student responsibilities in this module will revolve around two components: seminars and writing assignments. a. seminars
A series of seminars is timetabled, with one contact hour per week for LIVE Zoom session. Seminars are related to specific required readings, and students should come to seminar having read the essential material. They should be prepared to actively discuss that material and engage with others. Additional readings and Web sites are suggested for continued investigation of module topics. We expect students to actively engage module themes. b. writing assignments
Assessment will consist of two items totalling 5,000 words of submitted materials. Details will be provided separately. • 1x 1,000-word analysis of primary source material • 1x 4,000-word research essay
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6. Schedule
This schedule lists topics for class sessions. Most materials are available via Moodle, as are instructions for what we’d like you to prepare prior to the session. The activities here consist: • Discussion material indicates readings you are expected to read before the live session and to be prepared to discuss in the live session. • Essential readings are sources of supporting value to the session and important substantively for scholarship in the subject. At a minimum, you should skim two other items selected. Ideally, you will read two of the items selected. These also will have value in the assessment. • London’s history are locations in the London region relevant to the subject; perhaps, you’ll be able to visit them at some point during your studies.
Preview: What is Global History of Science?
Before first session Cain Discussion material UoL (1826) Essential reading none Objective In this preview, we’ll introduce the module plan, the coursework we expect students to undertake, and the additional opportunities for study in this area. We’ll also introduce some of the organising themes and historiography for the module. week 20 Food and Landscapes
15 January 2021 Cain Discussion material Carey (1814: i-xii) Essential readings Brockway (1979: 77-102) Schiebinger (2004: 1-22) London’s history Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is the UK’s premier botanic garden. The Garden Museum is a disappointment and stands in contrast to just about every Royal Park in London. Look for curated gardens with named specimens of exotic plants, esp. in Greenwich Park and Queen Mary’s Gardens in Regent’s Park. Chelsea Physic Garden is key in the history of apothecaries and import. Also, food halls in major retailers, such as Fortnum and Mason, Selfridges, and John Lewis/Waitrose (Oxford Circus) nicely show themes in this section. London has several commercial attractions associated with food history, such as Vinopolis. Objective This session considers the relation between food, botanical gardens, and empire. The essential readings are key works in framing the history of botanical gardens as a history of extraction and exchange. The discussion material is the introduction to a catalogue for a major botanical garden.
4 HPSC0081 Science in the Nineteenth Century 2020-21 syllabus week 21 Exploration
22 January 2021 Bulstrode Discussion material La Pérouse (1798), see Moodle for page numbers Essential readings Latour (1986) Cruikshank (2005, 127-153) Bravo (1999) London’s history George Adams, No.60 Fleet Street, London. Instrument Maker to the king, Adams provided scientific apparatus to Captain Cook and, through the French spy Paul Monneron, to La Pérouse. Objective This session aims to introduce canonical literature in STS/HPS (Latour, 1986) together with critical comment and analysis (Cruikshank, 2005; Bravo, 1999). In this way the session introduces essential 19th century history and historiography, while supporting students to develop their own critical awareness. Central to this session is to consider whose histories are we telling? week 22 Nature’s Secrets
29 January 2021 Cain Discussion material Darwin (1839: 453-478), or Davenport (1863: 64-84) Essential readings Allen (1996) Thwaite (2002: 170-203) McCook (1996) London’s history Down House is the museum and gardens advertised as the home of Charles and Emma Darwin. The largest natural history collection in the UK is the Natural History Museum. Also of major value are the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Oxford) and the Museum of Zoology and the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences (Cambridge). The Booth Museum in Brighton has a significant collection, too. For living specimens, there is London Zoo and London Aquarium. Aquaria at Horniman Museum and SeaLife Brighton are smaller scale but have important 19thC appeals. Objective This section examine exploration and natural history collecting on both global and national scales. We also examine how history of natural history highlights gendered histories of science. week 23 Machine Economy
05 February 2021 Bulstrode
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Discussion material Taylor (1814) Essential readings Schaffer (1994) Williams (1994: 154-177) Evans (2013) London’s history You can also see Cornish engines at the London Museum of Water and Steam and the first completed Difference Engine at the Science Museum. Objective This session aims to introduce canonical literature in STS/HPS (Schaffer 1994); and put it in global context (Williams 1994: 154-168, 169-177) and (Evans 2013). Understanding this global context helps recognise the significance of the history of 19th C science to present-day global challenges. week 24 Clinical and Experimental Medicine
12 February 2021 Turbil Discussion material Foucault (2003: ix-xix, 3-21) Bernard (1949 [1865]: TBC) Essential readings Jewson (1976) Nicolson (2009) London’s history UCL Cruciform Building and UCL Rockefeller Building {Cain, 2011 #126 sketches a history of these buildings} were facilities constructed to house medical sciences and clinical medicine. These were constructed in the same decade as UCL Medical Sciences (originally named, “Physiology”). Objective In this session, we discuss the rise of “medicalisation” in the diagnosis of illness and the conceptualisation of wellness. We also discuss the evolving relationship between medicine and science. week 25 Reading Week
19 February 2021 No session. Reading Week is a period to read essential and additional reading, undertake project work, reflect on your studies, and engage in informal learning associated with your programme of study. Here are some additional resources to supplement your reflection and lateral thinking. week 26 Great Exhibitions
26 February 2021 Cain Discussion material Hunt (1851), or CPC (1871) Essential readings Qureshi (2011: 101-125)
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Bellon (2007) Rydell (1984: 38-71) London’s history Crystal Palace Park, including the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs and Crystal Palace Sphinxes. Objective This session focuses on international exhibitions as a location for public engagement with science across the nineteenth century. We’ll compare the 1851 Hyde Park “Great Exhibition” and its successor, the 1854 Sydenham “Crystal Palace and Park” as early examples of exhibitions. Qureshi (2011: 101-125) examines anthropological and ethnographic displays at exhibitions on this scale. Bellon (2007) presents a day-in-the-live approach to visiting Hyde Park in 1851. Rydell (1984: 38-71) shows international expositions were significant globally.
week 27 A New Kind of Physics
05 March 2021 Bulstrode Discussion material James Clerk Maxwell to Michael Faraday, 9 November 1857 in James (2008: 301-2) Essential readings Gooding (1989) Broadberry and Gupta (2009) Ramalingam (2015) London’s history In 1809 Michael Faraday moved in with his parents at No. 18 Weymouth St (where it joins the Portland Place thoroughfare). Even after 1813, when he moved to the Royal Institution to work for Humphry Davy, he would call at no. 18 every evening. Objective This session introduces canonical literature in STS/HPS (Gooding 1989) and puts this literature in global contexts (Broadberry and Gupta 2009) to show how material resources were also conceptual resources (Ramalingam 2015) in the development of modern physics.
week 28 Rise of Public Health
12 March 2021 Turbil Discussion material LSACV (1880: 1-2) Essential readings Durbach (2000) more to come London’s history Thames Embankment and Florence Nightingale Museum Objective This sessions aims (1) to reflect critically on the meanings of health, surveillance and state responses to disease outbreaks in 19th century Britain, (2) to analyse why, in mid- 19th century London, the public’s health became a state responsibility, and (3) to explain the nature of state
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intervention and why it provoked controversy looking at the case study of compulsory vaccination against smallpox. week 29 Race Sciences
19 March 2021 Cain Discussion material Galton (1869: 336-362) Essential readings Haller (1971: 203-210) Gould (1996: 105-141) Desmond and Moore (2009: 172-198) London’s history Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford is one of the most extensive museums of ethnography in the UK, followed by the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge. In London, the Horniman Museum has good ethnographic collections, especially with musical instruments. Ethnographic collections are scattered across other institutions, including the Victoria and Albert Museum and Leighton House Museum. In Kent, the Powell Cotton Museum has excellent collections from sub Saharan Africa. UCL has several small ethnographic collections, including the UCL Ethnography Collections and the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. Anthropometric collections are available through the Science Museum and UCL Galton Collection. Objective This session examines the racialised science of anthropology and its relevance to projections about human futures through eugenics, extinction, hybridity, and scientific management. week 30 Climate Coals
26 March 2021 Bulstrode Discussion material Naoroji (1901: 212) Essential readings Schöberlein (2016) Anderson (2005: 235-284) Davis(2002: 25-60) London’s history Tyndall’s techniques for analysing atmospheres were adapted from those used by the Admiralty Coal Enquiry at the Museum of Economic Geology, Craig's Court, Charing Cross in their efforts to develop coal as a universal fuel. The ice for his demonstrations was imported all the way from America by steamship, by the Massachusetts-based Wenham Lake Company. The company stored its ice in the dry arches under Waterloo Road and advertised from a shop front at No. 125, The Strand, where they displayed a block of ice with a newspaper behind it, so that passers-by could read what was happening in the world through the ice.
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Objective The aim of this session is to bring together the objectives of previous sessions: questions of whose histories we are telling (Davis 2002: 25-60); why these histories matter to present-day global challenges (Schöberlein 2016) and how they help us to understand the ways in which society has shaped modern science (Anderson 2005: 235-284).
7. References list
Allen, David Elliston. 1996. Tastes and Crazes. in Nicholas Jardine, James A. Secord and Emma C. Spary (ed.). Cultures of Natural History. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: pp. 394-407. Anderson, Katherine. 2005. Predicting the Weather: Victorians and the Science of Meteorology. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Bellon, Richard. 2007. Science at the Crystal Focus of the World. in Aileen Fyfe and Bernard Lightman (ed.). Science in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-Century Sites and Experiences. Chicago, University of Chicago Press: pp. 301-335. Bernard, Claude. 1949 [1865]. An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (Translated). New York, Henry Schuman.
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Evans, Chris. 2013. Brazilian Gold, Cuban Copper and the Final Frontier of British Anti-Slavery. Slavery & Abolition 34: 118-134. Foucault, Michel. 2003. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. London, Taylor and Francis.
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Schiebinger, Londa L. 2004. Plants and Empire : Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
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