HST 347 Sex, Race, and Science

Instructor: Dr. Brad D. Hume            Office: Humanities (HM) 437             Phone: 93447
Email: brad.hume@notes.udayton.edu    Web: http://academic.udayton.edu/BradHume
Office Hours: Tues. and Thurs., 8:30-9:30 am, every other Wed. 2:00-4:00 (ask) and by appointment.

347.01 Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 in Humanities 125

Objectives of the Course: During the modern era (1700 on) scientists looked to sex and race as key categories for understanding human qualities and human nature. At first the views of scientists reflected larger upheavals in modern society. By the 1810s, however, scientists’ "evidence" for the importance of race and sex were being used to justify denying the vote to women and minorities, imperialism, and a host of privileges for white men. These developments have had a lasting impact on Western society. In this course the student will become familiar with how sex, race, and science have been tied together from the start and how scientists’ views and roles have changed since the 1700s. In this way students will gain a critical perspective on the difficulties of assessing scientific theories in our own society as well as skills for evaluating those theories. We will examine how the scientists pursued their work and how men and women of different sectors of society responded to these influential views. The developments reveal an unfinished struggle in modern society concerning identity on all levels.

This syllabus will change.

This course provides credit in the Women and Culture Cluster as well as the Values Technology and Society Cluster.

Course Requirements: The course will be a mixture of discussion, lecture, and some in-class group work. Your grade will be based on participation (15%), written assignments (10%), three out of four take-home essay exams (40%), and papers (35%). See below for an explanation of the papers.

Participation: NOTE: If you do not participate verbally in class you will NOT receive an A in this course. You are REQUIRED to print out, read, and bring readings to class on the day assigned. I have deliberately kept the number of textbooks low for this class so even the cost of printing will not add significantly to the overall costs. Keeping up with readings and discussion are crucial to doing well in this course. I will regularly take attendance to monitor participation, because if you are not in class, you certainly cannot participate. I will provide you with a list of general questions to think about as well as providing you with things to look for in specific readings. In many cases we will divide into groups to consider questions and then discuss those same questions in general. There will be at least 5 surprise quizzes during the course of the semester. They will be short (about 5 minutes), you may use your readings but you will not know in advance when they will occur.

Written Assignments: Five times over the course of the semester you will write written responses to documents from class. These will be primary source analysis papers of two pages in length in response to the sort of reflection questions I will present for discussion. You will bring them to discussion and refer to them as we go over the material. I will read them and give you brief comments and a grade. This is not an excuse to skip reading other materials. More will be said about this in class.

Take-home Essays: At the end of each unit I will provide two or three take-home essay questions. You are required to do the first essay exam after unit 1 and then two additional exams of your choice. If you wish, you may do all four essay exams and I will drop your worst grade. For each exam you will choose one question and write an essay, no less than 4 pages and no more than 7, in response. You will have one week to complete the question. The questions will require you to discuss readings covered in class. If you wish to use other sources, please consult with me beforehand. I have tried to make that unnecessary for these essays.

Papers: You have two options for paper topics, both of which involve outside readings.

Historiographical Essays: Twice during the course of the semester you will turn in an essay discussing a scholarly debate relating to one of the topics covered in class or to a topic related to this course. The first paper should relate to a topic prior to 1800 and the second should be post 1800. You must get your topic approved by me before going ahead. I strongly suggest that you also clear sources with me beforehand. You will read either two books or four scholarly articles on the topic and then write an essay discussing the main themes of the debate and your reflections on whose claims seem soundest and why. Each paper will be five to seven pages in length. See the Historiography Paper assignment instructions for further details.

Research Essays: For this assignment you will write a longer paper using at least two primary sources from class, one primary source from outside of class, and at least three secondary sources. Like the historiography paper assignment you will consider what other historians have to say but you will also examine the evidence for yourself and come up with your own argument on the topic. Your paper cannot simply be a summary of what other people have said with a few quotations from primary sources tossed in but must show that you have reflected on the evidence and attempted to provide your own arguments. They will partially be based on what your secondary authors have said but cannot simply reflect those views. This paper must be no shorter than twelve pages. See the Research Paper assignment instructions for further details.

Grading:

Course Grades by percentage: All assignments except quizzes will be worth 100 points and grades will be based on a standard curve, as follows:

Final Grades will be computed based on points weighted for percentages. For example, if an assignment was worth 30% of your grade and you received an 86, the grade would be computed by taking 86 and multiplying it by .30, or 86 x .30 = 25.8. Grade points with decimals of .5 and above will be rounded to the next whole number. In the above example 25.8 would become 26. In other words 30% at the B level computes to 26 points out of 30 possible in that category and 30 out of 100 total points.

Course Policies:

NOTE: I do NOT give extra credit assignments. Please do NOT come to me at hoping to be able to bring up your grade with extra work. In addition to the Department of History policies, please note the following.

Objectives and General Understanding: This syllabus is designed to give you all the information you need to understand what will happen in this course. You are responsible for reading and understanding this syllabus. I am responsible for making sure that all your questions are answered. Unless you tell me otherwise, I will assume that you have read and understood what we will be doing and how your grade will be determined. You may ask questions at the start of each class, via email, or in my office hours. You are being advised as to major due dates from the very beginning, please be sure to budget your time so that you are not faced with doing last minute work.

Assignments: Unless I specifically say that you may work with others on your assignments, you should assume that all assignments are to be done by you alone. The student handbook has all the definitions of plagiarism and other infractions against the academic code. Be sure to read and understand them so that you do not make any accidental mistakes. Keep a copy of all assignments (papers, etc.) on your hard drive through the entire semester. If there are any questions about the paper I will request it to examine it on plagiarism programs.  If you have any confusion about an assignment be sure to ask me – not another student! – about it long enough in advance that I will have time to give you a response. I am happy to answer all questions and provide any guidance that I can to help you produce quality work. Office hours are for students and you may visit me during those hours as often as you need to.

Due Dates: All assignments are due in class on the date assigned. Be sure to keep a copy on your computer in case I need an additional copy, but unless I specifically give you permission, do not send papers to me via email. Late papers will be docked 5 points (roughly one-half grade) for each day late (e.g., 3 days late = 15 points off the total points for the assignment; e.g., an 84 would become a 69). Weekend days count.

Attendance: I will be taking attendance, but even if you regularly attend without contributing to class your grade will suffer. This is an upper level class and I expect you to attend because it is important and because you cannot participate if you are not in class. But I also understand that you are upper level students. Please do not feel that you need to explain any particular absence. We will both know if you have been attending regularly and participating regularly.

Class Materials and Communications: Many materials for this course will be available at my web site but most of it will be found at our  You will be asked for a username and password -- your standard Lotus Notes username and password should work. If you have problems accessing the site, please let me know. Each semester I receive an email address that is really a distribution list (all I see is 07_WI_HST_347_01). I will be using that email address to communicate with you. If you do not use Lotus Notes regularly you will need to have your mail forwarded to your preferred address. Go to notes.udayton.edu and follow the instructions at the web site.

Required Texts:  

For the main texts, the books will be referred to by the last name of the only or first author/editor of the volume.

Jackson = John P., Jr. Jackson, Nadine M. Weidman, Race, Racism, And Science: Social Impact And Interaction (Paperback) (Rutgers, 2005) ISBN: 0-8135-3736-3

Kline = Wendy Kline, Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom (U of California, 2005) ISBN: 0520246748

Unit 1 When the World was Female and Raceless

W1 1/1-1/5

Course Introduction

W2 1/8-1/12 Ancient Bodies

Jackson, Preface, Prologue, and 1-4
* Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, Ch. 1 (1989), 1-16 (stop at the paragraph beginning "The Aristotelian theory of generation ...") (quickplace)
* Aristotle, from The History of Animals (quickplace)
* Aristotle, from Politics (quickplace)
* Galen, from On Hippocrates On The Nature of Man (quickplace)

W3 1/15-1/19 Medieval Bodies

Jackson, 4-7
* Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, Ch. 1 (1989), 16-41 (quickplace)
* Amerigo Vespucci (1452-1512): Account of His First Voyage, 1497

W4 1/22-1/26 Early Modern Views, Scientific Revolution

Jackson, p. 7-12
* Londa Schiebinger, from The Mind has no Sex? (Chapter 6) (quickplace)
* Steinbrugge, from The Moral Sex, 11-20 (quickplace)

1/24 Last day to withdraw without record

Unit 2 Inventing Sex and Race

W5 1/39-2/2 -- Natural History & Exploration

Jackson, 13-20
* Buffon, from Natural History [1781] 
* Dorinda Outram, from The Enlightenment (Ch. 5) (quickplace)

W6 2/5-2/9 -- Seeing Difference

* Londa Schiebinger, from The Mind has no Sex? (Ch. 7) (quickplace)
* Steinbrugge, from The Moral Sex, 35-43 (quickplace)
* William Smellie, The Philosophy of Natural History [1791] (you do not need to read the synopsis at the end but you might find it useful to do so).
* Jean Jacques Rousseau, from Emile [1762]

All students should have consulted about the research paper project and emailed Dr. Hume with their final topic by Thurs. 2/8. Any topics not formally decided on that date will mean that you are doing the historiographical essays and must still consult with me on a topic.

W7 2/12-2/16 -- Enlightenment & Revolution

Jackson, 20-27
Johann Friederich Blumenbach, "On the Natural Variety of Mankind" [1775] (Jackson, 256-268)
Thomas Jefferson, from Notes on the State of Virginia [1781] (Jackson, 269-275)
* Londa Schiebinger, "The Anatomy of Difference: Race and Sex in Eighteenth-Century Science," Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 23, No. 4, Special Issue: The Politics of Difference. (Summer, 1990), pp. 387-405 (also at JSTOR).
* Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women [1792] (quickplace)

Writing Assignment Two

Unit 3 The Tyranny of Sex and Race

W8 2/19-2/23 -- Peoples and Nations

Jackson, Ch. 2
Robert Knox, from The Races of Man [1850] (Jackson, 276-281)
* Samuel G. Morton, from Crania Americana [1844] (quickplace)
* Cynthia Eagle Russett, from Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood (Harvard, 1989)? (Intro. and 16-39) (quickplace)

W9 2/26-3/2 -- Evolutionary Theories & the Workshop of Nature

Jackson, Ch. 3
Charles Darwin, from The Descent of Man [1871] (Jackson, 281-287)
* Charles Darwin, from On the Origin of Species (quickplace)
* Cynthia Eagle Russett, "The Physiological Division of Labor," from Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood (Harvard, 1989) (quickplace)
Historiography paper 1 is due 3/1 in class

W10 3/5-3/19 -- Race, Class, History

Jackson, 97-119; Kline, Intro. and Chs. 1 & 2
William Ripley, from The Races of Europe [1899] (Jackson, 287-293)
Georges de Lapouge, from Old and New Aspects of the Aryan Question [1899] (Jackson, 294-299)
Madison Grant, from The Passing of the Great Race [1916] (Jackson, 299-304)
* Karl Pearson: National Life From the Standpoint of Science, 1900 (quickplace)

Writing Assignment Three

W11 3/12-3/16 -- Midterm break, no classes

Begin readings for week 12.

W12 3/19-3/23 -- Sexology, Eugenics and the Final Solution

Jackson, Ch.129-152; Kline, Chs. 3 & 4
* Havelock Ellis, from Sexual Inversion [1915] (quickplace)
Franz Boas, from New Evidence in Regard to the Instability of Human Types [1916] (Jackson, 304-309)
* Elsie Clewes Parsons, The Old-Fashioned Woman: Primitive Fancies about the Sex [1914]

Annotated Bibliography and project summary for the research paper are due in class 3/20
Writing Assignment Four
3/21 Last day to withdraw with a record of W

Unit 4 Culture, Genes, Current Debates

W13 3/26-3/30 -- Culture

Jackson, 120-125, 153-188
Hans Günther, from The Racial Elements of European History [1927] (Jackson, 324-334)
SKIM AND READ CONCLUSION: Carl Brigham, from A Study of American Intelligence [1922] (Jackson, 309-323)
* Cesare Lombroso, The Criminal Type (quickplace)
* Re-Read Karl Pearson: National Life From the Standpoint of Science, 1900 (quickplace)
"The Effects of Segregation and the Consequences of Desegregation," [1952] (Jackson, 334-348)

W14 4/2-4/6 -- The End of Race?

Jackson, 188-203 & Ch. 7
Washburn, "The Study of Race," (Jackson, 348-53)
Scott, "Black Science and Nation Building" (Jackson, 353-366)
American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race" (Jackson, 366-370)

4/5 No class, Easter Break

W15 4/9-4/13  -- Maintaining the Sexes

Kline, Ch. 5
* Robert Wright, from The Moral Animal (1994) (quickplace)
* David J. Buller, "Evolutionary Psychology: The Emperor's New Paradigm" (quickplace)

Writing Assignment Five

W16 4/16-4/20 -- Modifying the Body (1)

Kline, Epilogue
* Joanne Meyerowitz, from How Sex Changed (2002) (quickplace)
* Dawn Levy, "Sex and gender scientists explore a revolution in evolution" (2003) (quickplace)

Research Papers and Historiography Paper 2 are due 4/19 in class

W17 4/23-4/27 -- Modifying the Body (2)

Bill McKibben, from Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age (quickplace)

4/24 Last Day of Class

Study Days: 4/26-4/29
Final Examinations 5/1-5/5