Liberal Studies 564 Syllabus


Sep 9

Course Introduction
Sep 16
Defining "Literature and Science" and "Science Studies"
David Locke, "Literature and Science"
Joseph Rouse, "What Are Cultural Studies of Scientific Knowledge?"

The "Two Cultures" Debate Past and Present
C.P. Snow, The Two Cultures
T.H. Huxley, "Science and Culture"
Matthew Arnold, "Literature and Science"

Short Paper #1 Due

Sep 23
Reading Science as Literature
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
Gillian Beer, Darwin's Plots (chs. 2-4)
Sep 30
Science in Cultural Context
Darwin, The Origin of Species
Robert Young, "Darwinism Is Social"
Robert Young, Darwin's Metaphor: Nature's Place in Victorian Culture (chs. 2 and 4)

Short Paper #2 Due

Oct 7
Revolutions in Science
Bertolt Brecht, Galileo
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (chs. 3-6)
Roy Porter, "The Scientific Revolution: A Spoke in the Wheel?"

Preliminary Project Proposal Due

Oct 14
The Feminist Critique of Science
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Evelyn Fox Keller, "A World of Difference"
Sandra Harding, "From the Woman Question in Science to the Science Question in Feminism"
Anne Mellor, "Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein"
Oct 21
The Rhetoric of Science
James Watson, The Double Helix
Alan Gross, "Rhetorical Analysis" and "The Tale of DNA"
Oct 28
The Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
Watson, The Double Helix
David Bloor, "The Strong Programme in the Sociology of Knowledge"
Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life (chs. 2 and 3)

Final Project Proposal/Working Bibliography Due

Nov 4
Ecocriticism
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony and "Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination"
Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, "Introduction to Ecocriticism"
Nov 11
Science Studies and Its Critics
Paul Gross and Norman Levitt, The Higher Superstition
Nov 18
Literature and Medicine: Representing Disease
Paul Monette, Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir
Michel Foucault, "The Perverse Implantation"
Carol Reeves, "Language, Rhetoric, and AIDS"
Sander Gilman, "Seeing the AIDS Patient"

Project Rough Draft Due Prior to Thanksgiving Break

Nov 25
Thanksgiving Break--No Class
Dec 2
Cyberpunk and Cultural Studies of the Body
William Gibson, Neuromancer
Claire Sponsler, "Cyberpunk and the Dilemmas of Postmodern Narrative"
Anne Balsamo, "The Virtual Body in Cyberspace"
Dec 9
Science and Religion
Errol Morris, A Brief History of Time
Shawn Rosenheim, "Extraterrestrial: Science Fictions in A Brief History of Time and The Incredible Shrinking Man"
John Brooke, "Interaction between Science and Religion"
Dec 16
Projects Due