HST 407/507, Spring 2009

HST 407/507. Science, Ideology, and the State in the 20th Century (Seminar)
Portland State University, Spring 2009
Richard H. Beyler

Phone: 503.725.3996 • Office: Cramer 441-O (History Dept.)
Drop-in office hours: Tue. & Thu. 12:00-13:00; otherwise by appointment
E-mail: beylerr |at| pdx |dot| edu • Homepage: web.pdx.edu/~drrb
Class meets Wed. 9:00-12:00

Themes. The 20th century experienced massive growth in the practical power and the cultural authority of science. The century also saw the rise and fall of several competing political ideologies and intense conflict–armed and otherwise–among states championing these ideologies. What is the relationship between these two central characteristics of the modern world? It is sometimes assumed that science is, or at any rate ought to be, free from politics. However, the historical record certainly challenges the “is” version of that assumption–and possibly the “ought” version as well. In this seminar we will examine these and related aspects of the political history of science: in particular, the relationships between science as a social institution and the state in its various forms and manifestations, and relationships between science as a body of knowledge and various political philosophies and ideologies.

This course is a seminar. This means that the work of the course largely involves reading, research, writing, presentations, and discussion by the members of the class.

The overall course objectives are: 1) a deepened understanding of the complex social and political relations of science in recent history; 2) an awareness of some of the main approaches to doing the history of science; and 3) an increased ability to think critically about, do research in, and write about historically significant issues.

Texts. We will be reading a number of articles and essays which to give a sense of the range of historiographical issues surrounding science, ideology, and the state which have been analyzed by historians–and also, perhaps, to provide inspiration and sources for your own research. These articles appear in several sources. We will be reading portions of the following books, which will be available at the PSU Bookstore and on reserve at PSU's Millar Library.

Jacob, Margaret C., ed. The Politics of Western Science 1640-1990. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1994; repr. Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 2000. [Some, but not all, of the essays in this book are reprinted from the journal Social Research 59, no. 3 (1992), which is accessible electronically via the PSU library.]

Walker, Mark, ed. Science and Ideology: A Comparative History. London: Routledge, 2002.

We will also be reading some articles and essays available in a course packet (hereafter CP) available for purchase at the bookstore; the items comprising the packet are also available on reserve.

Finally, we will be reading a number of articles in a virtual packet (hereafter VP), accessible on-line through e-journals at the PSU library. I will circulate and post on-line a page with links to theses articles. Among them are several articles taken from the journal Osiris. The library has an electronic subscription to this journal, but you can also (if you find it more convenient) purchase these issues as stand-alone volumes. If there is demand, I can also make a hard-copy version of the VP available for purchase.

Graduate students (HST 507) will also be reading portions of:

Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. Trans. Louis Wirth and Edward Shils. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1955. (German orig. 1936.)

Weber, Max. “Science as a Vocation.” In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and trans. H. H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills, 129-56. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946; repr. 1958, 1980. (German orig. 1918.) [This item is evidently accessible on the internet.]

Students in the class should expect to do additional reading as part of their individual projects and assignments.

Requirements and grading. The grading schemes are different for HST 407 and HST 507, though based on some of the same components. More details on the assignments will be provided in a separate handout.

Please have the assigned readings finished before the class indicated. The specific agenda for each week, including article background reports and research presentations, will be arranged as we proceed.

CP= Course Packet (hard copy packet or library reserve)
VP = Virtual Packet (articles available electronically)
PWS = The Politics of Western Science, 1640-1990, ed. Margaret C. Jacob
SICH = Science and Ideology: A Comparative History, ed. Mark Walker

II. 8 Apr. Does ideology = anti-science? Does science = anti-ideology? What constitutes “neutrality” in science?

Harding, Sandra. “After the Neutrality Ideal: Science, Politics, and ‘Strong Objectivity.’” PWS, 81-101.

Havel, Václav. “The End of the Modern Era.” New York Times, 1 March 1992, sec. 4, p. 15. VP.

Holton, Gerald. Science and Anti-Science. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1993. – Chap. 6, “The Anti-Science Phenomenon,” pp. 145-89. CP.

Kleppner, Daniel. “Thoughts on Being Bad.” Physics Today, Aug. 1993, 9-10. VP.

Proctor, Robert N. Value-Free Science? Purity and Power in Modern Knowledge. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1991. – Conclusion, “Neutrality as Myth, Mask, Shield, and Sword,” 262-71 + notes, 309-10. CP.

III. 15 Apr. The history of historical inquiry into “science and ideology.”

Gordin, Michael, et al. “‘Ideologically Correct’ Science.” SICH, 35-65.

Hollinger, David A. “Free Enterprise and Free Inquiry: The Emergence of Laissez-Faire Communitarianism in the Ideology of Science in the United States.” New Literary History 21 (1990): 897-919. VP.

Jacob, Margaret C. “Science and Politics in the Late Twentieth Century.” PWS, 1-17.

Somsen, Geert J. “A History of Universalism: Conceptions of the Internationality of Science from the Enlightenment to the Cold War.” Minerva 46 (2008): 361-79. VP.

IV. 22 Apr. The organization of science in different national contexts. Proposals due.

Abraham, Itty. “The Ambivalence of Nuclear Histories.” Osiris 21 (2006): 49-65. VP.

Fan, Fa-Ti. “Redrawing the Map: Science in Twentieth-Century China.” Isis 98 (2007): 524-38. VP.

Porter, Theodore M. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1995. – Chap. 7, “U. S. Army Engineers and the Rise of Cost-Benefit Analysis,” 148-89 + notes, 250-62. CP.

Rozwadowski, Helen M. “Internationalism, Environmental Necessity, and National Interest: Marine Science and Other Sciences.” Minerva 42 (2004): 127-49. VP.

Shinn, Terry. “Science, Tocqueville, and the State: The Organization of Knowledge in Modern France.” PWS, 47-80.

Beyerchen, Alan. “What We Now Know about Nazism and Science.” PWS, 129-55.

Beyler, Richard, Alexei Kojevnikov, and Jessica Wang. “Purges in Comparative Perspective: Rules for Inclusion and Exclusion in the Scientific Community under Political Pressure.” Osiris 20 (2005): 23-48. VP.

Cassidy, David C. “Heisenberg, German Science, and the Third Reich.” PWS, 157-75.

Cocks, Geoffrey. “Sick Heil: Self and Illness in Nazi Germany.” Osiris 22 (2007): 93-115. VP.

Steinweis, Alan E. “Ideology and Infrastructure: German Area Science and the Planning for the Germanization of Eastern Europe, 1939-1944.” East European Quarterly 28 (1994): 335-47. VP.

Gerovich, Slava. “‘New Soviet Man’ Inside Machine: Human Engineering, Spacecraft, and the Construction of Communism.” Osiris 22 (2007): 135-57. VP.

Grunden, Walter E., et al. “Laying the Foundation for Wartime Research: A Comparative Overview of Science Mobilization in National Socialist Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union.” Osiris 20 (2005): 79-106. VP.

Josephson, Paul R. “Soviet Scientists and the State: Politics, Ideology, and Fundamental Research from Stalin to Gorbachev.” PWS, 103-28.

_____ and Thomas Zeller. “The Transformation of Nature under Hitler and Stalin.” SICH, 124-55.

Rabkin, Yakov M., and Elena Z. Mirskaya. “Science and Totalitarianism: Lessons for the Twenty-First Century.” SICH, 17-34.

VII. 13 May. Cold War science (I). Research paper drafts due(to me and to partner).

Bruno, Laura A. “The Bequest of the Nuclear Battlefield: Science, Nature, and the Atom during the First Decade of the Cold War.” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 33 (2002): 237-60. CP.

Ciesla, Burghard, and Helmuth Trischler. “Legitimation through Use: Rocket and Aeronautic Research in the Third Reich and the U.S.A.” SICH, 124-55.

Kaiser, David. “Cold War Requisitions, Scientific Manpower, and the Production of American Physicists after World War II.” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 33 (2002): 131-59.

Leslie, Stuart W. “Science and Politics in Cold War America.” PWS, 199-233.

Pols, Hans. “War Neurosis, Adjustment Problems in Veterans, and an Ill Nation: The Disciplinary Project of American Psychiatry during and after World War II.” Osiris 22 (2007): 72-92. VP.

VIII. 20 May. Cold War science (II). Research paper comments (for partner) due.

Beyler, Richard H., and Morris F. Low. “Science Policy in Post-1945 West Germany and Japan between Ideology and Economics.” SICH, 97-123.

Doel, Ronald E., and Kristine C. Harper. “Prometheus Unleashed: Science as a Diplomatic Weapon in the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration.” Osiris 21 (2006): 66-85. VP.

Krige, John. “Atoms for Peace, Scientific Internationalism, and Scientific Intelligence.” Osiris 21 (2006): 161-81.

Leuenberger, Christine. “Cultures of Categories: Psychological Diagnoses as Institutional and Political Projects before and after the Transition from State Socialism in 1989 in East Germany.” Osiris 22 (2007): 180-204. VP.

Mindell, David, Jérôme Segal, and Slava Gerovitch. “From Communications Engineering to Communications Science: Cybernetics and Information Theory in the United States, France, and the Soviet Union.” SICH, 66-96.

Allen, Garland E. “Genetics, Eugenics and the Medicalization of Social Behavior: Lessons from the Past.” Endeavour, new ser., 23, no. 1 (1999): 10-19. VP.

Paul, Diane B. “Eugenic Anxieties, Social Realities, and Political Choices.” PWS, 177-97.

Weindling, Paul. “International Eugenics: Swedish Sterilization in Context.” Scandinavian Journal of History 24 (1999): 179-97. VP.

X. 3 Jun. Biological politics: the environment. Review essays due. Questions for take-home essay exam distributed.

Dunlap, Thomas R. “American Wildlife Policy and Environmental Ideology: Poisoning Coyotes, 1939-1972.” Pacific Historical Review 55 (1986): 345-69. VP.

Jasanoff, Sheila. “Biotechnology and Empire: The Global Power of Seeds and Science.” Osiris 21 (2006): 251-72. VP.

Tijmes, Pieter, and Reginald Luijf. “The Sustainability of Our Common Future: An Inquiry into the Foundations of an Ideology.” Technology in Society 17 (1995): 327-36. VP.

Exam week. Tue. 9 Jun., 9:00-10:00. >>> NOTE DAY/TIME! <<<
Although there is not an in-class examination, we will reserve this period–the designated time for our final exam–for student presentations and concluding comments. Research papers, take-home exams due.