Science and Race History of Science 153
MW 11-12; Sever Hall 214
Spring 2002 Instructor: Professor Charis Thompson
Office Hours: Thursday 12-2p.m., and by appointment
Office: Science Center 225
Phone: 617 - 496 3366
Email: thomps7@fas.harvard.edu
This class will explore sciences *of* race, or the way that science has been used to designate, as well as show the fictitiousness of, racial categories. It will also consider science *and* race, looking at such iconic cases as Tuskegee, Nazi science, genetic studies of radiation exposure in Japan, AIDS, indigenous knowledges, and DECODE in Iceland. The final section will look at scientists and race, including a consideration of prominent scientists of color, and an examination of the patterns of and reasons for the racial distribution of scientists over time.
Readings:
There is a reader which should be available for purchase by the end of
the fourth week of classes.
In addition, the following books are required:
Barkan, Elazar, 1992. The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gosset, Thomas. (1963) 1997. Race: The History of an Idea in America
(New Edition). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Graves, Joseph, 2001. The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories
of Race at the Millennium. Rutgers University Press.
Harding, Sandra, ed. 1993. The "Racial" Economy of Science:
Toward a Democratic Future. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Lie, John, 2001. Multi-Ethnic Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Visvanathan, Shiv, 1997. A Carnival for Science: Essays on Science,
Technology, and Development.
Readings for first written assignment:
Boas, Franz, 1912. "The History of the American Race." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Vol. XX1, 177-183
UNESCO. 1950. "Statement on Race," in Statement on Race.
Ashley Montagu, ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1972, 7-13.
Evaluation:
Participation: 20% of final grade
You should take 1-2 pages of notes, which can be hand-written, on the
reading for each class, showing that you have read and understood the
content. Questions about, reactions, to, or disagreements with, the reading
are welcome. These notes are due in the class for which they are assigned.
These notes will be read by the instructor but will not be graded individually.
They help me assign the participation portion of the grade and they should
help you to stay on track with the reading. You can miss two sets of notes
without penalty or explanation. You can make up missed notes at any point
in the semester if there is a legitimate reason why you were unable to
complete them in time.
There are two written assignments.
1. Midterm paper. You must write a paper using one or both of these primary documents, The UNESCO "Statements on Race" from 1950, and Franz Boas' 1912 "The History of the American Race". These papers will be available for you to copy in the department of the History of Science. A choice of guiding questions will be distributed in class on Wednesday 13th March, and the essays are due the following Wednesday, 20th March. 30% of final grade.
2. Final exam. You can petition to substitute a research paper (~15pp)
in place of the final exam. If you choose a paper, it should be on a topic
of your own choosing, in consultation with the instructor. 50% of the
final grade.
Schedule of Classes:
Wednesday January 30: Introduction
Hand out syllabus. Introduction to the class themes; reading and thinking strategies for the class; administrative details.
Part I: The Science of Race: Constructing It; Deconstructing It; Afterlife
Monday February 4: The History of Race in America
Gossett, Race, pp. 3-175
Wednesday February 6: Religion vs. Science
Gossett, Race, pp. 176-309
Monday February 11: Science, Race, Eugenics
Gould, Stephen Jay. 1993. "American Polygeny and Craniometry before Darwin: Blacks and Indians as Separate, Inferior Species," in The "Racial" Economy of Science, 84-115.
Lewontin, R.C., Steven Rose, and Leon Kamin, 1993. "IQ: The Rank Ordering of the World," in The "Racial" Economy of Science, 142-160
Wednesday February 13: Between the Wars: Struggling over the Science of Race
Barkan, Reatreat of Scientific Racism, 66-176
If not available, please read
Graves, The Emperor's New Clothes, 140-153
Monday February 18 - No class: President's Day holiday
Wednesday February 20: The Limits of the Science of Race
Barkan, Retreat of Scientific Racism, 177-340
Stepan, Nancy Leys and Sander L. Gilman. 1991. "Appropriating the Idioms of Science: The Rejection of Scientific Racism," in The "Racial" Economy of Science, 170-193
Monday February 25: Recalcitrance of Ethnicity
Lie, Multi-ethnic Japan, 27-141
Wednesday February 27: Race Lives On: Afterlife?
Graves, Emperor's New Clothes, 140-200
Monday March 4: Making the "Standard"
Jacobsen, Matthew Frye, 1998. Whiteness of a Different Color: European
Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 13-136
Wednesday March 6: Other Ways and Consequences of Doing Race
Bowker, Geoffrey, and Susan Leigh Star, 1999. Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 195-225
Graham, Richard, ed., 1990. The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940.
El Paso: University of Texas Press, 1-5
Part II: Science and Race
Monday March 11: Nazi Science
Proctor, Robert, 1993. "Nazi Medicine and the Politics of Knowledge," in The "Racial" Economy of Science, 344-358.
Weindling, Paul, 1999. "A Virulent Strain: German Bacteriology as
Scientific Racism, 1890-1920," in Waltraud Ernst and Bernard Harris,
eds., Race, Science and Medicine, 1700-1960. New York and London:
Routledge, 218-234
Wednesday March 13: Atomic Science
Lindee, Susan, 1994. Suffering Made Real: American Science and the
Survivors at Hiroshima. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 3-79
and 169-215
Monday March 18: Natural History?
Fausto-Sterling, Anne, 1995. "Gender, Race, and Nation: The Comparative Anatomy of "Hottentot" Women in Europe, 1815-1817," in Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla, eds., Deviant Bodies. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 19-48
Haraway, Donna, 1989. "The Biopolitics of a Multicultural Field,"
in the Racial Economy of Science, 377-397
Wednesday March 20: From Physics to Psychology
Morawski, Jill, 1997. "White Experimenters, White Blood, and Other White Conditions: Locating the Psychologist's Race," in Fine et al., eds., Off White: Readings on Race, Power, and Society. New York and London: Routledge, 13-28
Traweek, Sharon, 1993. "Cultural Differences in High-Energy Physics:
Contrasts Between Japan and the United States," in Racial Economy
of Science, 398-407
-Spring Break March 23-31-
Monday April 1: Race and Medicine I
Worboys, Michael, 1999. "Tuberculosis and Race in Britain and Its Empire, 1900-1950," in Waltraud Ernst and Bernard Harris, eds., Race, Science and Medicine, 1700-1960. New York and London: Routledge, 144-166
Jackson, Mark, 1999. "Changing Depictions of Disease: Race, Representation and the History of Mongolism," in Waltraud Ernst and Bernard Harris, eds., Race, Science and Medicine, 1700-1960. New York and London: Routledge, 167-188
Farmer, Paul, (1999) 2001. Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues (Updated Edition). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 262-282
Inhorn, Marcia, and Frank van Balen, eds., 2002. Infertility Around
the Globe: New Thinking on Chlidlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 3-30
Wednesday April 3: Race and Medicine II
Wailoo, Keith, 1997. Drawing Blood: Technology and disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 134-161.
Tapper, Melbourne, 1999. In the Blood: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 12-28
Kreiger, Nancy and Mary Bassett. 1993. The Health of Black Folk: Disease, Class, and Ideology in Science. In The "Racial" Economy of Science, 161-169.
Jones, James. 1993. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: "A Moral Astigmatism."
In The "Racial" Economy of Science, 275-286.
Monday April 8: Race and Medicine III
Landecker, Hannah. 2000. Immortality, In Vitro: A History of the HeLa Cell Line. In Biotechnology and Culture: Bodies, Anxieties, Ethics. Paul Brodwin, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 53-72.
Haiken, Elizabeth, 1997. Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 175-227
Wednesday April 10: Genetics
Fortun, Michael, 2001. "Speculating on Iceland," Paper presented
at the Society for the Social Studies of Science annual conference, Cambridge,
MA, November 2001.
Reardon, Jenny, 2001. "The Human Genome Diversity Project: A Case
Study in Coproduction." Social Studies of Science 31: 357-388
Haraway, Donna, 1997. Modest Witness@Second Millenium. FemaleMan Meets
Oncomouse. New York and London: Routledge, 213-266
Monday April 15: Biotech and North / South Equity
Juma, Calestous, 1989. The Gene Hunters: Biotechnology and the Scramble for Seeds. Zed Books and Princeton University Books, 149-207
Shiva, Vandana, 1993. Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on biodiversity
and Biotechnology. Third World Network and Zed Books, 65-94
Wednesday April 17: Race and Epistemology
Harding, Sandra. 1993. "Eurocentric Scientific Illiteracy - A Challenge for the World Community," in The "Racial" Economy of Science, 1-22.
Hess, David, 1995. Science and Technology in a Multicultural World: The Cultural Politics of Facts and Artifacts. New York: Columbia University Press, 185-249
Visvanathan, Shiv, 1997. A Carnival for Science: Essays on Science,
Technology, and Development. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1-47
Monday April 22: Indigenous Knowledges
Gusterson, Hugh, 1996. "Nuclear Weapons Testing: Scientific Experiment
as Political Ritual," in Laura Nader, ed., Naked Science: Anthropological
Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge. New York and London:
Routledge, 131-147
Scott, Colin, 1996. "Science for the Rest, Myth for the Rest? The
Case of James Bay Cree Knowledge Construction," in Laura Nader, ed.,
Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and
Knowledge. New York and London: Routledge, 69-86
Agrawal, Arun, 1995. "Dismantling the Divide Between Indigenous
and Scientific Knowledge," Development and Change 26: 413-439
Part III: Scientists and Race: Is Science Open to All? Does One's
Race Effect One's Science?
Wednesday April 24: The State of Play
Malcolm, Shirley. 1993. "Increasing the Participation of Black Women
in Science and Technology," in The"Racial" Economy of
Science, 249-253.
Wong, Cheuk-Yin. 2000. "The Los Alamos Incident and its Effects
on Chinese-American Scientists," paper presented at the American
Physical Society, April 29, 2000 at Long Beach, California, available
online: www.ocpaweb.org/llnl/WongAPS.txt
Monday April 29: Black Apollos
Fouche, Rayvon, forthcoming. "Liars and Thieves: Granville T. Woods
and the Process of Invention," Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press.
Hine, Darlene Clark. 1993. "Co-Laborers in the Work of the Lord:
Nineteenth Century Black Women Physicians," in The "Racial"
Economy of Science, 210-227.
Manning, Kenneth. 1993. "Ernest Everett Just: The Role of Foundation
Support for Black Scientists, 1920-1929," in The "Racial"
Economy of Science, 228-238.
Sands, Aimee. 1993. "Never Meant to Survive: A Black Woman's Journey
- An Interview with Evelynn Hammonds," in The "Racial"
Economy of Science, 239-248.
Wednesday May 1: Technology
Williams,Linda, 2001. Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and
White from Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton
University Press, 252-295
Kolko, Beth, Lisa Nakamura, and Gilbert Rodman, eds., 2000. Race in
Cyberspace. New York and London: Routledge, 1-13
Dyer, Richard, 1999. "Making 'White" People White," in
MacKenzie, Donald, and Judy Wajcman, eds., The Social Shaping of Technology,
Second Edition. Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 134-137
Mimi Nguyen, "Tales of an Asiatic Geek Girl: Slant from Paper to
Pixels," in Alondra, Thuy Linh, and Headlam Hines, eds., Technicolor:
Race, Technology, and Everyday Life. New York and London: New York
University Press, 177-190
Guillermo Gomez-Pena, "The Virtual Barrio @ the Other Frontier:
(or The Chicano Interneta), in Alondra, Thuy Linh, and Headlam Hines,
eds., Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life. New York
and London: New York University Press, 191-198
Gilroy, Paul, 1993. "Wearing Your Art on Your Sleeve: Notes Towards
a Diaspora History of Black Ephemera," in Small Acts: Thoughts
on the Politics of Black Cultures. London: Serpent's Tail, 237-257
Reading Period May 4-15
Exams May 16-24
