There is a long tradition of seeing science as apolitical, but historically a complex relationship has existed between science and politics. Scientists work within political structures, and those systems in turn influence what kinds of science and technology are pursued within a given society. Science has also come with norms that make claims about what kind of political systems support the best kind of science.

This course explores the history of public health in the U.S. In doing so the course examines debates regarding the following: the goals of public health, the role of quantitative and qualitative methods and sciences in describing and assessing a
population’s health, the nature of evidence, the environmental and biological factors that influence health, the relation of public health to biomedicine, and the social determinants of health. Throughout, the course examines both the history of racism,

This scheduled weekly interdisciplinary seminar provides the context to reflect on concrete experiences at an off-campus internship site and to link these experiences to academic study relating to the political, psychological, social, economic and intellectual forces that shape our views on work and its meaning. The aim is to integrate study in the liberal arts with issues and themes surrounding the pursuit of a creative, productive, and satisfying professional life. Students receive 1.0 unit of academic credit for the academic work that augments their concurrent internship fieldwork.

Research under the close supervision of a faculty member on a topic agreed upon. Application and proposal to be submitted to the department chair and faculty research advisor. Recommended for majors prior to the senior research semester.

In this capstone experience for the STHS major, students conduct detailed research on an STHS topic (drawing upon historical, sociological, and/or philosophical approaches) and produce a final project appropriate to their academic and co-curricular interests, e.g., writing a substantive paper, creating a web exhibit, or designing a syllabus.

A survey of the history, science, and technology of Mars exploration. Topics include the discovery of Mars by ancient civilizations, the first telescopic observations of Mars, the economics and politics of the U.S. and Russian Mars exploration programs, spacecraft design and the technologies needed for planetary exploration, and the future of Mars exploration including a possible manned mission to Mars. The scientific component of this course focuses on the planetary evolution of Mars and the question of whether life might have arisen on Mars.

This class provides an intensive introduction to the scientific study of memory, and then examines the application of this science to four important social contexts. These include the social implications of age-related changes in memory, the role of memory in between-individual and between-group relations, the role of memory in the courtroom, and the role of memory in advertising and marketing.

In the early Twentieth Century, new experimental evidence encouraged physicists to abandon a consistent and nearly complete description of nature. They replaced common sense notions about the physical world with strange realities based on the new theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. As the physicists’ new explanations of nature grew increasingly counter-intuitive, it became harder for non-physicists to understand precisely what physicists where doing.

"Better things for better living...through chemistry" was a popular slogan used by DuPont in the mid-to-late twentieth century to market laboratory-developed products. Increasingly, concerns have been raised about the merits and consequences of chemicals in our food, goods, and environment. This class analyzes how we know what we know about chemistry, and how studies of the very small shape fundamental questions about the world, e.g. what is natural, what is artificial, does the difference matter, and if so in what contexts?

This course examines the connections between 20th century science (with particular emphasis on physics) and the effects of science on public policy, international relations, and the strategy and tactics of modern warfare. During the first half of the 20th century, physicists’ concepts of the universe changed as new fields of thought emerged: relativity, quantum theory, and eventually nuclear physics. At the same time, the interactions between scientists and governments evolved significantly, as the scope of war expanded and, in response, new technologies were integrated into warfighting.