HSci5050 Syllabus

Syllabus

Description:

This course is a single quarter introduction to and survey of women's involvement in science. We will note some patterns from antiquity and the middle ages, but quickly move to the period following the scientific revolution when basic professional orientations and theoretical assumptions associated with modern western science began to be established. Much of the reading will be based on experiences in North America, although comparative work is invited via student projects. Several themes will reoccur throughout the quarter; namely we will consider the ways in which women have pursued scientific and technological knowledge, the cultural factors that established their environment, the family situations that facilitated or inhibited them in their work, and the ways in which scientific theory and research influenced their identity and opportunities.

There are no prerequisites. The course is open to those with a background in history or in science. It is primarily a reading seminar, and students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the reading assignments which form the core of the course; approximately a third of the course grade will be based on that participation. Students should be prepared to review and report on one supplementary book (in class and in a written review of 3 or 4 pages in length). Students are encouraged to maintain reading logs and journals on class material and to come to class with questions that will facilitate discussion -- these will also be circulated in advance via e-mail. Students will also be expected to lead discussion on particular assignments. The final project will have three options: a study contributing to our understanding of women as scientific travelers, a historiographical essay, or a small research project. These will be shared with fellow students at the end of the quarter.

All of the reading assignments are on reserve in Walter Library (sometimes in photocopy but often in the books indicated, so browse if you feel inclined to do so) and ordered through the Williamson Bookstore, including the following:

*Margaret W. Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1982).

*Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex: Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).

*Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991).

*Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (New York: Harper and Row, 1980).

*Cynthia Russett, Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).

*Sally Gregory Kohlstedt and Helen Longino, Women, Gender, and Science: New Directions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

*Anne Hibner Koblitz, A Convergence of Lives: Sofia Kovalevskaia, Scientist, Writer, Revolutionary (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1993).

*Hillary Rose, Love, Power, and Knowledge: Toward a Feminist Transformation of the Sciences (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994)

*Londa Schiebinger, Has Feminism Changed Science? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999)

Week II
(April 7)

Week III (April 14)

Week IV (April 21)

Week V
(April 28)

Week VI
(May 5)

Week VII-VIII
(May 12 & 19)

Week IX
(May 26)

Week X
(June 2)

Week XI

Topics and Assignments

All assignments should be read before the indicated class date. Those marked with an asterisk (*) should be read by everyone. Other readings may be assigned for individual reports and are supplementary. You may also want to consult reviews on the various texts that we read in class, particularly those on which you report. Many of them have been reviewed in historical journals (American Historical Review, Isis, Journal of American History) or in women's studies journals (Women's Review of Books, Signs, Women's Studies).

I. March 29 Introduction and
Overview: Reflections on women, science, gender, and history.

What do we mean by science? by technology? What do we mean by the terms
woman/women, female, and gender? How does science influence those definitions?
Why are there so few women evident in the history of science?

II. April 7

Gender and Science in the Origins of Modern Science

Consider the ways in which various contemporaries might have thought about Margaret Cavendish. What is most compelling about Merchant's argument? How do the readings problematize the Scientific Revolution?

*Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980), chapters 1, 7 and 9.
*Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? (Cambridge: Harvard, 1989), chapters 1-2.
*Deborah E. Harkness, "Managing an Experimental Household: The Dees of Mortlake and the Practice of Natural Philosophy" (Isis, 1997).

III. April 14
Science for Girls and Women

What sciences attracted women in the era of "learned ladies?" What were the
incentives for studying within the scientific tradition? What are the boundaries of science as
practice? How did women negotiate the amateur - professional terrain of the early nineteenth
century?

*Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, Struggles and Strategies
to 1940 (1982), chapter 1.

*Ann B. Schteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science: Flora's Daughters
and Botany in England 1760-1860 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1996), chapters
5-6.

- Pnina Abir-Am and Dorinda Outram, eds., Uneasy Careers and Intimate
Lives, Women in Science, 1789-1979 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1987).

IV. April 21
Medical and Scientific Views of Women

There was considerable opposition to the advanced education of women, some
of it put forward by medical doctors and scientists. Women, however, also
gained expertise and challenged the assertions and theories by example and
by research. How were the issues negotiated among physicians, scientists,
ordinary women, and reformers?

*Cynthia Russett, Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).

-Martha H. Verbrugge, Able-Bodied Womanhood, Personal Health and Social
Change in Nineteenth Century Boston (New York: Oxford University Press,
1988), chapter 5.

-Regina Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science, Women in American Medicine
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), chapters 4 and 8.

-Mary Roth Walsh, "Doctors Wanted, No Women Need Apply": Sexual
Barriers in the Medical Profession, 1839-1975 (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1977).

V. April 28 Women
Shape Careers in Science

Margaret Rossiter's thesis that territorial and hierarchical structures shaped women's options is an important theoretical construct, but there are also other dimensions to the constraints faced by women in the expanding scientific context of the later nineteenth century. Use the biography and the additional readings in Rossiter to think about the importance of particular cultural settings as well as the common features emerging in westernized cultures.

*Ann Hibner Koblitz, A Convergence of Lives: Sofia Kovalevskaia: Scientist, Writer, Evolutionary (Rutgers University Press, 1998; 1993).
*Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, chapter 2-4

VI. May 5
Women Scientists as Travelers, Reality and Metaphor

The University of Minnesota is developing a digitized text project that will focus on
women travelers in conjunction, with a number of courses. With Amy Foster, new material on
the history of science is a pilot project currently underway. In particular, this on-line source
will include primary materials on women who traveled to do scientific work and on women
whose travels emboldened them to investigate the natural world; some women traveled only
in their own backyard but nonetheless both expanded their own "world" and
contributed to science. For this week all students will undertake a project that relates to
the new web site, identify new sources (primary and secondary) and make use of those
already on line. Some students may expand this assignment into their quarter project. Do
you think these women are "tigerlilies?"

VII. and VIII. May 12 and 19

For the next two weeks we will build on the particular interests of
students enrolled in the class. Topics will focus on the late 19th and the
20th centuries. In addition to thinking more about women in science, I
expect that we will consider the ways in which science intersects with
issues of gender, with particular reference to of discussions of biology
and sexual identity in the natural world. Some potential topics and books
include:

Women and Popularization of Science
Vera Norwood, Made from this Earth, American Women and Nature (1993).,

Barbara Gates, Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the
Living World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).

Body Literature
Alice Domurat Dreger, Hermaphrodites: The Medical Invention of Sex
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).

Sexism in Science
James B. Watson, The Double Helix (New York: Atheneum, 1968)
Anne Sayre, Rosalind Franklin and DNA (New York: Norton, 1975)

Women and Primatology
Donna Haraway, Primate Visions or Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The
Reinvention of Nature(1991)

IX. May 26
Women and Scientific Achievement

By the twentieth Century women were actively achieving recognition in science but older patterns persisted and careers did not always go along the idealized models of professional success. Moreover, for those who did achieve, the ambivalence about their status as women was apparent and their very achievements seemed to carry expectations that were burdensome to some. What criteria seem to be used to measure women's achievement? What are the roles they are expected to play and how do these responsibilities intersect with the science they pursue?

*Margaret Rossiter, Struggles and Strategies, chapters 5-6, 10-11

*Evelyn Fox Keller, "Developmental Biology as a Feminist Cause?" in Kohlstedt and Longino, eds., Women, Gender, and Science: New Directions, Osiris 12 (1997)

*Hilary Rose, Love, Power, and Knowledge: Toward a Feminist Transformation of the Sciences (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994), esp. chapters 6 and 7.

X. June 2
Reflections on the past and thoughts about the present.

Has Londa Schiebinger changed her focus in terms of topics and point of view in this most recent book? Which arguments do you find most persuasive? Which least?
*Londa Schiebinger, Has Feminist Changed Science? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).

XI. Class Projects
Presentation of final projects to the group during final exam week. Meeting to be scheduled.