Science, Culture, and Society II - Medieval and Early Modern Science

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course considers the global history of science from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries, looking at the relationship between science, power, and the state in shaping the making of knowledge about nature in the medieval and early modern world. Topics will include the histories of astronomy, botany, medicine, navigation, alchemy, and mechanics, as well as dynamics of translation, transmission, and circulation and the relationship between science and religion. At the same time, this is also a class about how we think and write about the history of science itself, including what "counts" as science, where science can be said to begin, and whether there was such a thing as a "Scientific Revolution" at all.