IHPST Fall/Winter 2024-25 Courses
HPS1100Y - Advanced Research Paper
*Mandatory for all IHPST PhD Students, Optional for MA students (HPS1000H and HPS1500H)
Rebecca Woods
MON 16:00-18:00 – Full Year biweekly
The purpose of the 1100Y is for students to demonstrate their ability to conduct original research in their chosen field of interest that shows promise of eventual publication. Students pursue research projects of their own design over the course of the year in consultation with both the faculty member leading the 1100Y seminar and with a faculty advisor specializing in their field of expertise. This course is required for all PhD students, and all students must pass this course with an A- or above to continue in the program.
IHPST Fall 2024 Courses
HPS3010H - Social Epistemology
Joseph Berkovitz
TUE 11:00-13:00
Traditionally, epistemology has dealt with the ways in which an individual acquires knowledge through perception and reasoning. However, in recent years it has become apparent that the traditional discussions of knowledge in general, and scientific knowledge in particular, fail to capture important aspects of the social dimension of knowledge. We acquire most of our beliefs from the testimony of others, including experts, and from social institutions that are in charge of the generation of knowledge. The relatively recent branch of philosophy that deals with the social dimensions of knowledge is called social epistemology. It has developed through dialogue with the history of science, sociology of scientific knowledge, anthropology, and philosophy of science. The course will provide an introduction to social epistemology, in general, and social epistemology of science, in particular. It will deal with various aspects of the nature of knowledge from this new perspective, including issues such as the development of scientific knowledge, ‘knowledge that’ (something true) vs. ‘knowledge how’, the influence of social and cultural factors on scientific methodology, scientific rationality and scientific knowledge, scientific realism vs. social constructivism, distributive cognition, holism vs. methodological individualism, trust, expertise, consensus, distributive epistemic injustice, and feminist epistemology.
HPS4020H - Postcolonialism and the Global Turn in Science & Technology Studies
Elise Burton
TUE 14:00-16:00
This seminar introduces graduate students to the role of postcolonial theory in generating a “global turn” in histories of science and the multidisciplinary field of science & technology studies (STS). We will read and discuss how postcolonial scholars have critiqued historical and social studies of science, and debate the theoretical and methodological significance of ideas like “global perspectives,” the “Global South,” and “non-Western science” in STS. To evaluate the impact of these ideas on the field, we will also read recently published case studies applying postcolonial approaches to histories of science, technology, and medicine. Students will have the opportunity to compare these approaches with the related but distinct concepts of decoloniality emerging from Indigenous studies, and to consider how postcolonial STS can inform their own ongoing research.
HPS4023H - Brave New Worlds: Science + Fiction
Nikolai Krementsov
THU 12:00-14:00
During the last two centuries science fiction (SF) has become the mythology of modern societies, and the very name of this literary genre points unambiguously to science as their acknowledged linchpin. Every mythology offers a deep insight into the mores and morals, heroes and villains, structures and strictures, dreams and taboos of the society that produced it. This graduate research seminar explores SF as a particular lens for the understanding of both the historical development of modern sciences and the role of science and scientific knowledge in the historical development of modern societies. It is structured thematically around a series of classic SF novels and speculative writings by eminent scientists, but focused on students carrying out independent research projects that examine one of the major themes addressed in the readings, from aliens, androids, and AI to evolution, eugenics, ET, and beyond. The seminar concludes with a workshop where students present their research projects to the audience of their peers.
HPS4110H - Medicine, Science, and Mobility in the Mediterranean World
Lucia Dacome
TUE 11:00-13:00
The Mediterranean world has historically been characterized as a fluid and permeable space of both human and non-human movement and interactions across Africa, Asia, and Europe. This course examines the role of Mediterranean entanglements in the histories of science and medicine, focusing on the premodern period. We will address topics such as the relationship between medicine, science, and religion; slavery, medicine, and natural inquiry; epidemics and public health; shifting views of disability; the movement of specimens and curiosities; travel and scientific exchange; orientalism and its legacies; and the making of human diversity. We will also critically reflect on the category of mobility, engaging in questions related to how movement participated in processes of knowledge production in medicine and natural inquiry and, conversely, how medical, and scientific pursuits encouraged mobility.
IHPST Winter 2025 Courses
HPS2000H - History of Mathematics: Quantification, Knowledge, and Governance
Ellen Abrahms
THU 11:00-13:00
This seminar examines a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to quantification in the history of science and science and technology studies (STS). Historical texts will survey the rise of quantification across scientific disciplines and in various forms of governance. As a group, we will consider what kinds of knowledge and forms of governance are produced through quantification, how something (or someone) becomes quantifiable, and how quantitative objects or practices can be analyzed as historical or ethnographic sources. Students will have the opportunity to explore how an analysis of quantification might be relevant to their own research.
HPS2001H - History of Physics
Chen-Peang Yeung
TUE 10:00-12:00
The aim of this graduate seminar is to introduce important developments in the history of physics and to explore the ways to understand them. In the semester, we will examine in chronological order the emergence or consolidation of some primary areas of physical sciences, such as mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum physics, and relativity. Although these topics by no means exhaust all the noteworthy episodes, they nonetheless represent the major route along which physics has taken shape. In addition to its historical subject, each session corresponds to a historiographical theme, which can be philosophical, sociological, or cultural. We will discuss how historians have addressed these themes and turned them into approaches of writing the history of physics and assess the implications of such approaches.
HPS3003H - Social Studies of Medicine: Making/Doing the Philosophy of Medicine Outside the Canon
Suze Berkhout
THU 14:00-16:00
This graduate seminar in philosophy of medicine aims to consider the field from topics, practices, and disciplines that are infrequently considered to be part of the “canon.” Conventionally, philosophy of medicine attends to particular topics in ontology, epistemology, and ethics: the concept of health versus illness; philosophical issues surrounding causation, kinds, and nosology; the nature of evidence; fiduciary duties and the healthcare provider-patient relationship. Within the Anglo-American philosophical tradition, there are also traditional approaches to how these topics are engaged with. At the same time, philosophy of medicine—considered within a framework of science & technology studies—is also a field that is responsive to interdisciplinary ways of knowing as well as approaches that deeply consider materials, objects, and practice.
This course is designed to engage learners in thinking about and with philosophy of medicine in ways that reach beyond the canonical topics and methods. We will explore some commonplace topics (health versus illness; nosology) through an orientation of “making & doing,” an approach in STS that considers how specific settings, agents, and agencies participate in the (nonlinear) materialization of knowledge. We will also explore, through interdisciplinary critical theories and practices in disability studies, anthropology, art history, topics that are outside the canon—sense, affect, embodiment. Aligned with STS sensibilities, this course pays close attention to method, matter, object and practice, looking at philosophy of medicine as a way of making/doing/sensing, with interlocuters across the humanities.
HPS4011H - Cognitive Technologies: Philosophical Issues and Debates
Karina Vold
MON 13:00-15:00
Many technological developments have brought with them significant changes in both the modes and scope of human thinking, including how we learn, how we remember, and how we perceive and engage with the world. This seminar will introduce graduate students to philosophical issues and debates that arise from the development of cognitive technologies. We will analyze and discuss key epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues that sit at the intersection of philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of technology, and neuroethics. Topics covered will include situated views of cognition, cognitive artifacts, cognitive enhancement, and artificial intelligence.
HPS4103H - The Technological Underground: New Methods in History of Technology
Edward Jones-Imhotep
TUE 13:00-15:00
This course examines new and emerging methods for investigating the histories of technology by focusing on the “technological undergrounds.” Undergrounds have figured powerfully in human histories and imaginations as places of alterity, concealment, exploration, and discovery; as well as spaces of hope, refuge, and fugitivity. The course leads students through a collection of technological undergrounds – real and figurative – to examine the unexplored and underexplored histories of technology. What people and technologies have historically occupied these spaces? How can the idea of the underground help us approach people and technologies traditionally written out of our histories? What can it reveal about agency, resistance, and the category of technology itself? Drawing on recent work in global history, critical race studies, postcolonialism, and digital humanities, the course analyzes the particular challenges posed by source materials and current frameworks, and encourages students to develop new analytical tools, frameworks, and modes of scholarly expression.