christian roots - medieval and early modern science

Final Review Sheet for Group B Students

francisk — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:49:56 -0800

Group B students should prepare to answer these questions for the final exam on Tuesday, March 11.

Final Review Sheet for Group A Students

francisk — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:48:45 -0800

Group A students should prepare to answer these questions for the final exam on Tuesday, March 11.

InDesign Computer Workshop, Thursday February 28th, 1 to 3 pm

bowcuttf — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:26:38 -0800

If you plan to scan your images and use a computer to print out the pages you will then sew into your book, this workshop will help you. We will learn how to arrange the pages so that when the folios are placed together, your pages will be in the right sequence. Bring all your scanned images on a flashdrive or other accessible form. We will be meeting in the Mac Computer lab.

Final Exam Questions

bowcuttf — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:03:27 -0800

As promised, we are posting the final exam questions earlier than last quarter. Group A writers will be given four Group B prompts and asked to respond to two in essay form. Group B writers will be given four Group A prompts and asked to respond to two. All the prompts are posted on our website. In addition, all students should be prepared to respond in essay format to the question: what are the Christian roots of the Scientific Revolution? (or, in other words, explain how the roots of the scientific revolution are firmly grounded in Chri

Friday, February 22nd Lecture Time

bowcuttf — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:41:10 -0800

We will be meeting for lecture this Friday from 1 to 3 pm in our normal lecture hall.

Week 9 & 10 Reading Assignments

bowcuttf — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:38:27 -0800

Please read Schiebinger's chapters 1 through 5 for week 9 and chapters 6-10 for week 10.

Week 9 & 10 Paper Topics (Groups A & B)

bowcuttf — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:20:43 -0800

1. Using one or more biographies developed in The Mind Has No Sex?, present evidence for and against the dualisms listed on page 234.

2. Compare and contrast Merchant’s and Schiebinger’s approach to integrating gender into their scholarship. Why might these approaches be critical to a more complete understanding of the history of science during the early modern era?

3. As presented by Schiebinger, what were the constraints during the early modern era that limited women’s participation in science? Dorothea Erxleben said she “feared recrimination from all sides” (251). Thiroux d’Archonville worked anonymously at home on her scientific endeavors because, “[s]he believed that intellectual women garner only ridicule; if their work is good, they are ignored; if it is bad, they are hissed at” (250). How might these exceptional women and others “prove the rules” of exclusion?

Week 8 Paper Topic (Group B)

bowcuttf — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:21:43 -0800

Choose from two prompts:

1. Jacob describes the moral aspirations of many of the leaders of the Scientific Revolution. If we are to believe Brockway, the scientific revolution did not benefit all people equally. Who benefited and why?

2. How did medieval and early modern cultural values plant the seeds for the kinds of relations with plants and British colonies described by Brockway? You might consider human relations with gardens and farming described in fall readings and Merchant's Death of Nature. Consider whether Francis Bacon's writings created a model for Kew Garden. To what extent did Kew Garden depart from his vision. What forces might account for this departure?

Reading Assignments

bowcuttf — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:38:20 -0800

For workshop on Friday, Feb. 15th, Francis Bacon's New Atlantis is highly recommended as supplemental reading. The reading is available in the Readings folder or through Ares. Please bring the reading to class on Friday.

For Week 8 read all of Brockway's Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal

Botanic Garden EXCEPT the chapters on rubber and sisal (Chapter 7 and 8).

Optional Readings

bowcuttf — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:30:11 -0800

For Week 7 a copy of Schiebinger, "The Loves of Plants" is available through ARES and a copy of the Counterblaste to Tobacco by King James I of England (1604) is available at https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/bitstream/1794/759/1/tobacco.pdf

For Week 8 an optional reading on Maria Sibylla Merian from Davis' Women on the Margins is available through through ARES. As is "Did Women Have a Renaissance?" by Joan Kelly-Gadol. Both of these pieces support the lecture on Friday, February 29th. You might also find the selections from Cultures of Natural History interesting supplemental readings to the Brockway.