s is a team-taught course drawing on staff research interests, the exact content will vary. However, it will typically include the following:
- Tools of professionalisation: journals, societies, institutions and methods
- The chemist as consultant
- Research schools
- Laboratory discipline and the universities
- Scientific institutions and science reform campaigns
- From “natural philosophy” to “physics”
- Standards, measurement, accuracy and precision
- Defining the status of science: “pure”, “fundamental” and “applied”
- Big Science and the military-industrial-academic complex
- Two Cultures
- Physics dethroned? Technoscience, convergence and the rise of bioinformatics
- Images of the scientist in non-scientific culture
Teaching and learning methods
Contact time is devoted to small-group discussion based on assigned readings. Students will regularly be asked to introduce the themes and arguments of readings to the rest of the class, and respond to comments. Some classes may also feature short video screenings.
Readings and other support materials are delivered via Blackboard, which is also used for essay upload. Students are encouraged to raise questions about the course in class or via email, and the group email list is used to continue general discussion on course themes. There may be occasional, informally organised visits to sites discussed on the course.
Knowledge and understanding
describe and analyse the development of the physical sciences, and their relationship with the wider world, in the period 1800-2000
- construct and defend an argument according to the norms of scholarly historical research
- critically examine the techniques used to build a coherent scientific discipline, and the rhetorical devices used to support particular developments or definitions
- contribute to group discussion
- read, summarise and critically examine source texts, and present findings orally in a group setting
- conduct independent research on primary and secondary historical sources
- clearly present an argument in essay form using appropriate source documentation
Transferable skills and personal qualities
- critically and comparatively appraise source texts
- give an oral presentation examining a source text, and respond to questions or comments from others
- contribute to group discussion
- engage members of scientific and non-scientific communities in discussions about the development and status of scientific disciplines
- Analytical skills
- Discussions during seminars and the essay writing require use of concepts and analysis to develop arguments.
- Group/team working
- Depending on the reading, students might be asked to contribute to group discussion.
- Students are trained to develop own arguments and express views on set readings.
- Project management
- With the consultation of their unit coordinator, students research and write their essay projects independently.
- Oral communication
- Each seminar is reading-based discussion, students are asked to read and communicate their understanding of the texts.
- Students need to complete two essays based on independent research in HSTM.
- Written communication
- Students write two essays for this unit.
Essay 1 - 3000 words in length - 50% weighting within the unit
Essay 2 - 3000 words in length - 50% weighting within the unit
The seminar discussion format of the course gives all students regular opportunities to discuss their ideas with teaching staff. Staff are also available to discuss essay proposals and general course performance by appointment, on a one-to-one basis. All coursework is double-marked, and essay scripts are returned to the students with both sets of markers’ comments.
- Thomas J Misa, Leonardo to the Internet: technology and culture from the Renaissance to the present. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 2004, chapter 3 onwards.
- Ben Marsden and Crosbie Smith, Engineering Empires: a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2005.
- Jon Agar, Science in the 20th Century and Beyond. London: Polity 201