This course is designed for students who will be conducting independent research in the history of science, medicine, or technology under the supervision of a faculty mentor. Prior discussion and approval of the intended work is required.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/1
• PosTag(s): n/a

How did the computer become an omnipresent machine? This overview course aims to familiarize students with the evolution of the computer as a pivotal technological advancement of the twentieth century and to foster critical thinking about the widespread notion of computerization, which is often associated with profound changes, as reflected in terms like "Personal Computer Revolution," "the Age of Big Data," and the more recent "AI Revolution." Throughout the course, we will emphasize both the universal aspirations and the localized boundaries that have shaped patterns of technological dissemination and the circulation of knowledge—from the dawn of digital computing, rooted in the computational needs of the United States and Britain during World War II, to the modern-day manifestations of the so-called "digital divides." To achieve this objective, we will explore classical narratives centered on American history as well as emerging transnational and cultural studies in computing. This exploration will be enriched by extensive engagement with primary source documents.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Tatarchenko, Ksenia
• Room: Krieger 307
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 18/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, CES-TI

This course explores seven centuries of fruitful collaboration between physicians and artists, uncovering the shared discourses and therapeutic agendas that united the art of picture-making with the art of healing. Topics include understandings of the gendered body in ancient natural philosophy and Christian theology; astrological medicine; physiognomics and the visual diagnosis of mental and physical disease; medieval medical diagrams; the anatomical investigations of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; depictions of pain and suffering in the art of Matthias Grünewald, melancholy in the prints of Albrecht Dürer, and the cross-cultural history of the therapeutic artefact; the spectacularization of the body in Enlightenment science, and the ethics of medical specimen display today -- all bringing into view the dynamic intersections of the history of medicine and the history of art.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Merback, Mitchell
• Room: Gilman 119
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 7/24
• PosTag(s): HART-MED, HART-RENEM, MSCH-HUM

From embellished silver pens and abolitionist secretary desks to contemporary artists manipulating historical postcards and making fax collages, this course will explore the materiality, technologies, and aesthetics of written communications from the 18th century to the present. This research-centered course will engage directly with objects in the Baltimore Museum of Art collection, in preparation for an upcoming exhibition. Topics include the development of specific decorative arts and designs in conjunction with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century postal and bureaucratic history, letter-writing as a mode of resistance, strategic illegibility and asemic writing as a form of critical artistic practice, and the importance of mail art as conceptual and institutional critique. Includes hands-on work in the museum and class visits with BMA curator Dr. Leslie Cozzi.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Brown, Rebecca Mary
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/5
• PosTag(s): HART-MODERN, MSCH-HUM

How did the Western understanding of nature change between 1500 and 1720? We'll study the period through the works of astronomers and astrologers, naturalists and magi, natural philosophers and experimentalists, doctors and alchemists & many others.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Krieger 180; Krieger 306
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 2/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

How did the Western understanding of nature change between 1500 and 1720? We'll study the period through the works of astronomers and astrologers, naturalists and magi, natural philosophers and experimentalists, doctors and alchemists & many others.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Krieger 180; Hodson 301
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 8/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

How can we think about the interconnections between racism, theories of race and the practice of medicine? Living at a moment when racial disparities in health outcomes in the United States are still very stark, this course will provide a historically grounded approach to thinking about the roles that race and racism have played in healthcare, the production of health disparities as well as the role of medicine in the development of racist thought. While much of this course will focus geographically within the United States, this class will also explore global histories of medicine, encountering questions of race and medicine in Africa, the South Pacific and Asia. In addition to the analysis of primary source documents and historical texts, students will also be introduced to theoretical approaches to the study of race and racism from W.E.B. Dubois, Sylvia Wynter, Frantz Fanon and others.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: White, Alexandre Ilani Rein
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 2/20
• PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, CES-RI, MSCH-HUM

This First-Year Seminar explores the scientific-technological, philosophical, social, and ethical dimensions of using animals for scientific research from the early nineteenth century to present. Why did scientists use animals and how did they choose “the right animal for the job”? How did philosophers define a “model organism”? What were the political economies formed within research communities sharing research animals? How did financial and material infrastructure take shape for large-scale, long-term maintenance of genetically standardized mice or zebrafish? How did the interpretations of animals reflect the social imaginaries of researchers and our society? And how did animals “speak” back? These are questions we are going to examine through reading scholarly publications, watching documentaries, visiting laboratories, and doing mini research projects together.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Ragab, Ahmed; Staff
• Room: Hackerman B 17; Gilman 119
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

For History of Science, Medicine, and Technology majors preparing a senior honors thesis.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

This is a reading seminar on foundational scientific writings and historical literature related to history of our understanding of the biological cell and molecules. From the idea of spontaneous generation to Schleiden and Schwann’s cell theory, from the “organizer” concept in embryology, to the comparative studies of Hox genes, from tissue culture to genomics, students explore how different tools, methods, and styles of reasoning became employed in creating and evaluating empirical observations, and how religious believes, metaphors, ideologies, state funding, and infrastructure became pivotal in organizing data and producing knowledge. The final project can be a historiographical essay, or a research paper related to the topic.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 6/12
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

How is the so-called “AI Revolution” altering the landscape of work? This course takes up this question through the lens of underemployment, migratory labor, and diasporic communities. We will read a variety of key works on migration and imagined communities, precarity and alienation, labor, automation, and empire—as well as texts produced in the margins of globalization. In conversation with these texts, we will investigate the dynamics of diasporic communities, migration, and solidarity vis-a-vis the future of work in a global society increasingly automated by AI models such as DeepSeek, ChatGPT, and Qwen 2.5, and the entities that own them. Through a variety of writing assignments and presentations, students engage issues such as race, class, gender, the border, citizenship, and community as they exist for diasporic and migratory workers. This course explores themes relevant to students of Critical Diaspora Studies, as well as the history of science and technology, political science and political economy, international studies, literature, film, and sociology. Readings may include works by Ruha Benjamin, Audre Lorde, Harry Braverman, Benedict Anderson, David Harvey, Edward Said, Mary L. Gray, Octavia Butler, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Todarello, Josh
• Room: Gilman 186
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): CES-BM, CES-LC, CES-RI, CES-TI, CDS-MB, CDS-SSMC

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 9:00AM - 9:50AM
• Instructor: Ragab, Ahmed
• Room: Hackerman B 17; Gilman 119
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 3/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Course provides an introduction to health and healing in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Topics include religion and medicine; medicine in the Islamicate world; women and healing; patients and practitioners.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Ragab, Ahmed
• Room: Hackerman B 17; Krieger 300
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This class will cover the history alchemy from its Greco-Egyptian and Arabic roots, through its popularization in the European Middle Ages, to its zenith in the Early Modern period. Using both primary and secondary sources, students will see how alchemy, rather than being a mystical quest or nothing more than the desire to turn lead into gold, was in fact a complex system of belief about the natural world and the generation of materials, both organic and inorganic. Reading works by historical alchemists such as Roger Bacon, Paul of Taranto, Paracelsus, and others, students will understand how alchemy was incorporated into numerous intellectual and practical disciplines, including metallurgy, medical theory, pharmacology, natural philosophy, and even theology. At the conclusion of the course, students should be able to answer: what role did the translation movements and cross-cultural exchanges play in the development of European alchemy? In what ways were (al)chemical theories different than modern chemistry? And in what ways are they the same? How do technology and culture drive changes in scientific theories? All majors are welcome, although students may find that a high-school level understanding of general chemistry will be helpful.

• Days/Times: W 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 4/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course will serve as an introduction to alchemy and its development into modern chemistry beginning with its Greco-Egyptian origins. A strong emphasis of the course will be placed on understanding the philosophy and practice of notable alchemists, such as through their synthesis and pursuit of the mythical ‘philosopher’s stone.’ We will analyze how alchemists of the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, like Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, and Isaac Newton, sought to understand the natural world through alchemical theories, experimental methods, symbolic representation, and metaphysical reflections. We will explore the philosophical underpinnings of these alchemical theories, with a focus on the Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, and Hermetic influences. Through writing assignments, students will engage critically with texts and alchemical iconography. Finally, the course includes a laboratory component in which we will reproduce alchemical procedures and analyze the products using modern solid-state characterization techniques. This course is intended for students of all majors and backgrounds.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Bassen, Gregory Neil
• Room: Bloomberg 172
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Remember the moon landing? Of course you don't, but no one who watched it on television would have guessed that the last moon walk would be in 1972. Now some of us are ready to 'Occupy Mars'. This First-Year Seminar will explore the Space Age from the launch of the Soviet Sputnik in 1957 to the International Space Station, including military and civilian programs, unmanned and manned missions, and new competitors in our current space race, such as China, India, and the European Space Agency. We will read contemporary and historical accounts (October Sky and The Right Stuff) and screen some classic space age feature films and documentaries. We will pay particular attention to Johns Hopkins University's contributions, notably the Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes and the Applied Physics Laboratory's satellite program. We'll talk with experts at the Space Telescope Science Institute and APL, and tour the National Air and Space Museum collections with the curator of manned spaceflight. In groups, students will prepare future space mission proposals for NASA and SpaceX, and present them to a distinguished panel of Hopkins space scientists and engineers.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Leslie, Bill W
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

What is the relationship between the histories of music and scientific development? How is making music a kind of laboratory research? Musical instruments and aesthetics have always emerged in dialogue with developments in science, technology, and medicine. The first stethoscope borrowed from the design of flutes and challenged physicians to grapple with new concepts like "sound," "signal," and "noise." The automation of industrial machinery was influenced by earlier musical automata--technology that sought to mechanically synchronize, sequence and loop musical phrases. Concepts like logarithms, combinatorics, resonance and sympathetic vibration, melancholy and mania, etc., relied on the contributions of musicians, music theorists, and instrument-makers. This seminar looks at points of contact between music and histories of science, technology, and medicine through both scholarly and creative lenses. The course integrates creative and experimental music making with reading and short writing assignments. Familiarity with music notation and some basic musical skills will be helpful but are not strictly necessary. Limit 15 students.

• Days/Times: W 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Ludwig, Loren
• Room: Shriver Hall 104
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 1/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course is designed for students who will be conducting independent research in the history of science, medicine, or technology under the supervision of a faculty mentor. Prior discussion and approval of the intended work is required.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Comfort, Nathaniel
• Room:  
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 2/2
• PosTag(s): n/a

The history of medicine and public health from the Enlightenment to the present, with emphasis on ideas, science, practices, practitioners, and institutions, and the relationship of these to the broad social context.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Cummiskey, Julia Ross
• Room: Gilman 132; Gilman 219
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This course explores how medicine, science, and technology intersect with war and conflict, shaping both the battlefield and society at large. It examines the medicine-science-war nexus by investigating the ways in which war and conflict have spurred scientific innovation and medical breakthroughs and, inversely, how scientific and medical innovations have enabled new forms of warcraft. From the development of antibiotics and prosthetics to the ethical dilemmas of weapons research and the use of artificial intelligence in combat, students will examine these entanglements and the profound moral and ethical questions they raise. Relying on case studies from historical and contemporary conflicts, historical documents, films, and literature, the course will investigate topics such as the technological frontiers of war, military funding of scientific research, post-conflict legacies of wartime technologies, and the long-term health outcomes of political and military conflict. Through a critical examination of these themes, students will gain a better understanding of the complex relationship between war and advancements in medicine, science, and technology and will be prompted to analyze the ethical, social, and political implications of the entanglements between war, science, and medicine.

• Days/Times: T 11:30AM - 2:00PM
• Instructor: Bayoumi, Soha Hassan
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 13/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, CES-LE, CES-TI, INST-GLOBAL

Religion is often portrayed as being at odds with science. From Galileo’s treatment by the Roman Inquisition to contemporary Creationism museums, we are told that religious institutions do not support science. Likewise, religious people don’t make good scientists – or do they? Is religion really the thorn in the side of science that so many claim it is? In this class, we will discover the interwoven history between scientific practice and religion, beginning with the atomism and humoral theories of the Ancient Greeks and culminating in 21st century debates about stem cells and cloning. Many of the great scientific minds were also deeply religious – how did their beliefs shape their practice of science and approach to the natural world? Is religion truly antithetical to scientific practice? And if not, why do we so readily assume that it is?

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Hodson 203
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/25
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

For History of Science, Medicine, and Technology majors preparing a senior honors thesis.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Taking its name from the work of scholar Katherine Verdery, who investigates why and how certain corpses took on a political life in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, this course examines ways that human bodies have been collected, displayed, concealed and disappeared across cemeteries, museums, universities and other sites. We will trace various valuations (and devaluations) imposed on bodies across the life course and examine how some bodies are made to matter more than others in both life and death. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives across anthropology, Black studies, history of medicine and more, we will engage with case studies from across the globe, from the 18th century to the present day.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Hester, Jessica Leigh; Lans, Aja Marie
• Room: Gilman 55
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/12
• PosTag(s): HIST-US, HIST-EUROPE, CDS-SSMC, ARCH-ARCH, MSCH-HUM

This course examines the relations of the scientific and technical enterprise and government in the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. Topics will include the funding of research and development, public health, national defense, etc. Case studies will include the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic, the Depression-era Science Advisory Board, the founding of the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, the institution of the President’s Science Advisor, the failure of the Superconducting Supercollider, the Hubble Space Telescope, the covid pandemic, etc.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Ginsberg, Benjamin; Kargon, Robert H
• Room: Gilman 75
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): INST-AP

What is “Science”? How do we do “science”? How have the boundaries of these definitions – what we consider to be science and the proper methods of gathering scientific information – changed over the centuries? Have scientists always held the same beliefs about what kinds of knowledge and evidence constitute “science”? In this class, we will examine how science was done in the period before the “Scientific Revolution”. We will learn about the ways in which Medieval scientists classified types of knowledge and what they considered to be acceptable means of determining truths about the world around them.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Allen, Meagan Selby
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

Is the mind identical to the brain? Is the mind (or brain) a computer? Could a computer reason, have emotions, or be morally responsible? This course examines such questions philosophically and historically. Topics include: the history of AI research from 1940s to present; debates in cognitive science related to AI (computationalism, connectionism, and 4E cognition); and AI ethics.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Honenberger, Phillip
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

What can the medium of horror tell us about popular understandings of medicine? What sorts of anxieties and concerns about the fields of health, bodily autonomy and the relationships between medicine and society can be drawn from the horror genre? Connecting film and some literature in the genres of horror to historical sources and readings in the field of the history of medicine, this class will use popular media as a window into key themes in the history of medicine. Some key topics of this class include reproductive rights and autonomy, the relationship(s) between medicine and religion, racism, xenophobia and disease and surgical horror. This class will meet twice a week with an additional film screening every other week in the evening. This class with its focus upon horror and especially horror films will deal with disturbing and violent material including graphic violence. Please be advised.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: White, Alexandre Ilani Rein
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

The history of medicine and public health from the Enlightenment to the present, with emphasis on ideas, science, practices, practitioners, and institutions, and the relationship of these to the broad social context.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Cummiskey, Julia Ross
• Room: Gilman 132; Gilman 55
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

This seminar investigates the contours of scientific dialogue in early modern Italy through the figure of Galileo Galilei and his intellectual milieu. We will examine how literary culture shaped the circulation of new ideas, and how women—whether as poets, patrons, or correspondents—participated in the exploration and communication of scientific knowledge. Readings include selections from Galileo’s scientific writings and extensive correspondence, alongside literary and artistic texts that illuminate the cultural contexts in which his ideas were produced, debated, and disseminated. By situating Galileo within academic, courtly, and cultural networks, the seminar considers the reciprocal relationship between scientific inquiry and literary production, with particular attention to how gender shaped access to, and participation in, intellectual life.

• Days/Times: T 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Ray, Meredith
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

For History of Science, Medicine, and Technology majors preparing a senior honors thesis.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room:  
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

The advent of artificial intelligence has brought to the fore how much we have taken the idea of thinking for granted in the past fifty years. This course will trace the development of the notion of mind in ancient Greece through the exploration of consciousness in eighteenth-century German thought and physiological explanations of thought beginning with Nietzsche in the nineteenth century. We will compare these historical accounts to the statistical models and neural network theories that dominate today. We will also read a selection of short(er) literary works in which the question of who, or what, is speaking brings the traditional aesthetic concept of mimesis into contact with mimetic theory in machine learning.

• Days/Times: WF 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Tobias, Rochelle
• Room: SNF Agora 107
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces substantial machine learning methods of particular relevance to humanistic scholarship. Areas covered include standard models for classification, regression, and topic modeling, before turning to the array of open-source pretrained deep neural models, and the common mechanisms for employing them. Students are expected to have a level of programming experience equivalent to that gained from AS.360.304, Gateway Computing, AS.250.205, or Harvard’s CS50 for Python. Students will come away with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different machine learning models, the ability to discuss them in relation to human intelligence and to make informed decisions of when and how to employ them, and an array of related technical knowledge.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Messner, Craig A
• Room: Bloomberg 168
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/10
• PosTag(s): COGS-COMPCG, MSCH-HUM

For History of Science, Medicine, and Technology majors preparing a senior honors thesis.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Portuondo, Maria M
• Room:  
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

The science, social thought, and cultures of heredity since the 19th century. We cover pre-Mendelian heredity, Mendelism, classical genetics and cytogenetics, molecular biology and genomics, including the Human Genome Project. We discuss eugenics, social Darwinism, scientific racism. We consider DNA in medicine, popular culture, art, commerce. Big questions include: Why are we so obsessed with heredity? Is Mendelism wrong? Is intelligence genetic? Is it possible to do meaningful science on race and intelligence? To what extent is your genome “you”?

• Days/Times: T 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Comfort, Nathaniel
• Room: Gilman 300
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/20
• PosTag(s): BEHB-SOCSCI

This course introduces basic computational techniques in the context of empirical humanistic scholarship. Topics covered include the command-line, basic Python programming, and experimental design. While illustrative examples are drawn from humanistic domains, the primary focus is on methods: those with specific domains in mind should be aware that such applied research is welcome and exciting, but will largely be their responsibility beyond the confines of the course. Students will come away with tangible understanding of how to cast simple humanistic questions as empirical hypotheses, ground and test these hypotheses computationally, and justify the choices made while doing so. No previous programming experience is required.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Lippincott, Tom; Sirin Ryan, Hale
• Room: Bloomberg 168
• Status: Canceled
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

The history of medicine and public health from the Enlightenment to the present, with emphasis on ideas, science, practices, practitioners, and institutions, and the relationship of these to the broad social context.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Cummiskey, Julia Ross
• Room: Gilman 132; Gilman 75
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 1/20
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM

At the dawn of the twelfth century, armies marched from Latin Europe, heading for Jerusalem. They attacked and invaded large territories in Asia Minor and the Middle East and created Latin polities that ruled over the Levant for about two centuries. During this period, new societies' political and social orders took shape representing the connections, exchanges, and wounds of conflict. The Crusading project extended well beyond the Middle East: European Christian armies sought to convert Northern Europe, eradicate old polytheistic religions there, and reestablish Christian rule in the Iberian Peninsula. By the sixteenth century, a new wave of Crusades extended to include the wars against the Ottoman Empire, the colonial expansion in Africa, Asia, and the “New World.” At the same time, the colonial expansion involved the emergence of new chattel transatlantic slavery with the atrocities and destruction that it wrecked for centuries to come. Diseases, famines, and other natural disasters marched alongside the marching armies. Famines accompanied the first and second crusades in the twelfth century. By the end of the fourteenth century, the Black Death had spread throughout the world, claiming one-third of the world’s population. Similarly, leprosy and syphilis spread alongside the armies moving across the Atlantic and Indian oceans. This seminar investigates the place of science, medicine, and technology in medieval and early modern war, conflict, and slavery. Starting from the Crusades of the twelfth century to the colonial wars and slavery of the seventeenth century, the course will investigate how conflicts develop, the technologies involved in their pursuit—from military technology to navigation to architecture—how conflicts affect medicine and medical knowledge—from military medicine and surgery to the development of hospitals to epidemics—and how conflict, war, and enslavement impacted the movement of people, goods, and ideas.

• Days/Times: W 2:30PM - 5:00PM
• Instructor: Bayoumi, Soha Hassan; Labruto, Nicole; Ragab, Ahmed
• Room: 555 Penn 632
• Status: Closed
• Seats Available: 16/18
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, CES-LE, CES-PD, CES-RI

This course surveys major scientific developments from the mid-18th century to the present, with a focus on the physical and the life sciences. Topics include the chemical "revolution", evolution by natural selection, genetics, and the recombinant DNA technology. Throughout, the course highlights the institutional context of scientific work. It also situates scientific developments within their broader techno-social context, paying special attention to the political, economic, and/or technological factors that enabled these developments in the first place, and to the social, political, and environmental impacts that accompanied the rise of modern science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room: Gilman 300; Hodson 316
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/16
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, ENGY-SCIPOL

This course surveys major scientific developments from the mid-18th century to the present, with a focus on the physical and the life sciences. Topics include the chemical "revolution", evolution by natural selection, genetics, and the recombinant DNA technology. Throughout, the course highlights the institutional context of scientific work. It also situates scientific developments within their broader techno-social context, paying special attention to the political, economic, and/or technological factors that enabled these developments in the first place, and to the social, political, and environmental impacts that accompanied the rise of modern science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Jiang, Lijing
• Room: Gilman 300; Gilman 300
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/16
• PosTag(s): MSCH-HUM, ENGY-SCIPOL