History of Medicine and Science
L-132 Sterling Hall of Medicine, 785.4338
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Chair
John Harley Warner
Director of Graduate Studies
Daniel Kevles (201 HGS, 432.1356)
Faculty
Daniel Kevles (History), Susan Lanzoni (Visiting, History of Medicine), Susan Lederer (History of Medicine), Ole Molvig (History), David Musto (Child Study), Naomi Rogers (Women's & Gender Studies; History of Medicine), Frank Snowden (History), William Summers (Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry), Frank Turner (History), John Harley Warner (History of Medicine)
Affiliated Faculty
Asger Aaboe (Emeritus, History of Science), Cynthia Connolly (Nursing), Joseph Fruton (Emeritus, Biochemistry), Robert Gordon (Geophysics & Applied Mechanics), Dimitri Gutas (Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations), Ann Hanson (Classics), Bettyann Kevles (History), Jennifer Klein (History), Martin Klein (Emeritus, Physics), Joanne Meyerowitz (History), Cynthia Russett (History), Rebecca Tannenbaum (History)
Fields of Study
All subjects and periods in the history of medicine and history of science. Special fields represented include American science and medicine; Asian science and medicine; Arabic science and medicine; disease, therapeutics, psychiatry, drug abuse, and public health; physics; science and national security; science and law, science and religion, life sciences, human genetics, eugenics, molecular biology, biotechnology, microbiology, intellectual property, gender, race, and science/medicine; bioethics and medical research.
Special Admissions Requirements
Applicants should have a strong undergraduate background in history and in a science relevant to the direction of their graduate interests. These requirements will be applied with flexibility, and outstanding performance in any field pertinent to the program will be taken into consideration.
Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree
Students are required to pass reading proficiency requirements in French and German; a student intending to concentrate in a field or period that requires another foreign language, ancient or modern, may, with approval, substitute that language for either French or German.
Students will ordinarily take twelve term courses during the first two years. All students will normally take the two-term core seminar sequence HSHM 601a/602b or equivalents, four additional graduate seminars in history of science or medicine, and at least one graduate course in a field of history outside of science or medicine. The remaining courses can be taken in history of medicine or science, history, science, or any other field of demonstrated special relevance to the student's scholarly objectives. Two of the twelve courses must be graduate research seminars in the History of Medicine and Science.
Students who enter having previously completed graduate work may obtain some credit toward the completion of the total course requirement, the amount being contingent on the extent and nature of the previous work and its fit with their intended course of study at Yale.
All students are expected, prior to entering on their dissertation work, to develop a broad general knowledge of the discipline. This knowledge may be acquired through a combination of course work taken at Yale or elsewhere, regular participation in the Program colloquia and workshops, and preparation for the qualifying oral examination.
Students will normally spend the summer following their second year preparing for the oral Qualifying Examination, which will be taken in the third year, preferably during the first half of it.
The Qualifying Examination will cover four areas of chosen concentration:
1 & 2. two fields in the history of science and/or history of medicine;
3. a field in an area of history outside of medicine and/or science;
4. a field of special interest, the content and boundaries to be established with the adviser for the field. The student may elect to do a second field in history outside of history of science or medicine; or a field in one of the sciences; or a field in a subject such as bioethics, health policy, public health, medical anthropology, medical sociology, science and law, science and national security, science and religion, science and culture, biotechnology, gender, science and medicine; race, science and medicine, or cultural studies.
During their first year, all students will be advised by the director of graduate studies. Students are encouraged to discuss their interests and program of study with other members of the faculty. At the beginning of the second year, each student is to obtain an adviser who will provide guidance in selecting courses and preparing for the Qualifying Examination. The adviser may also offer help with the development of ideas for the dissertation, but students are free to choose someone else as the dissertation supervisor when the time comes to do so.
Students are encouraged to begin thinking about their dissertation topics during the second year. They are required to prepare a Dissertation Prospectus as soon as possible following the Qualifying Examination and to defend the Prospectus orally before being admitted to full candidacy for the doctoral degree.
Teaching is an important part of the professional preparation of graduate students in History of Medicine and Science. Students will teach, usually in the third and fourth years of study. Students are also encouraged to participate in the programs to develop teaching skills offered by the Graduate School.
M.D./Ph.D. and J.D./Ph.D. Joint Degree Programs
Students may pursue a doctorate in History of Medicine and Science jointly with a degree in Medicine or Law. Standard graduate financial support is provided for the doctoral phase of work toward such a joint degree. Candidates for the joint degree in Law must apply for admission to both the Law School and the Graduate School. Information about the joint degree program with Medicine can be obtained from the Web site of the Yale Medical Scientist Training Program Office in the School of Medicine (http://info.med.yale.edu/mdphd/phd/index.html) and from the Web site of the History of Medicine and Science (www.med.yale.edu/histmed).
Master's Degrees
M.Phil. and M.A. (en route to the Ph.D.). See Graduate School requirements.
Master's Degree Program
The terminal M.A. program is designed particularly for those who plan to combine teaching or scholarship in these fields with a professional career in medicine or science. Students who enroll in the terminal master's degree program leading to the M.A. are expected to complete six term courses during two terms of study and submit an acceptable master's paper. Course work must include the graduate seminar HSHM 601a/602b and one additional graduate seminar in history of medicine or science. The remaining courses are to be chosen in consultation with the director of graduate studies.
For more information about the Program and admission to the Graduate School, see www.med.yale.edu/histmed/ and www.yale.edu/graduateschool/admissions/; or write to Barbara McKay (barbara.mckay@yale.edu).
Courses
HSHM 623bu, History of the Modern Sciences in Society. Ole Molvig.
MW 11.30–12.20
An introduction to the history of science from the Enlightenment to the present. The course focuses primarily on the physical sciences, but also includes major developments within the life sciences. Topics include the clockwork universe, the Chemical Revolution, evolutionary theory, thermodynamics, and quantum theory as well as colonial empires, industry, professionalization, cultural modernism, and nuclear fear. Also HIST 946b.
HSHM 624bu, Science, Feminism, and Modernity. Naomi Rogers.
Th 9.30–11.20
This seminar examines scientists and science in post-1800 Europe and North America, with a particular focus on interpretations of the transformation and “progression” of the natural world, drawing on recent feminist and science studies theorists including Donna Haraway, Sandra Harding, Evelyn Fox Keller, Londa Schiebinger, and Bruno Latour. Questions include: Has feminism changed science? Is there a feminist science? Is science multicultural? and were we ever modern? With an emphasis on biology, genetics, anthropology, and physics, we discuss the work and lives of women scientists, including an analysis of their representations in popular culture. Also HIST 944bu.
[HSHM 625au, Women and Medicine in America from the Colonial Era to the Present.]
HSHM 626au, Bodies and Machines in Medicine and the Mind Sciences. Susan Lanzoni.
T 9.30–11.20
This seminar examines the varied ways bodies and machines have been imagined and represented in the modern period in Europe and the United States, with examples from biology, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and computer science. Using primary materials from a variety of scientific and cultural sources, including literature and film, topics include the organism in nineteenth-century biology and romanticism; standardized and mechanized bodies; prosthetics, body enhancements, and movement technologies; machine models of the mind and their critics; the cyborg as technological and cultural icon; and virtual bodies in cyberspace. Also HIST 924a.
HSHM 627bu, The Making of the Modern Mind: History of Psychiatry and Psychology, 1800–2000. Susan Lanzoni.
TTh 11.30–12.20
We explore a range of scientific conceptions of the self that emerged from the rise of experimental psychology, the application of evolutionary models to the mind, and empiricist and behaviorist methods in psychology. Topics include studies of hysteria and trauma and Freud's delineation of the domain of the unconscious; and holistic visions of the self developed in neurology, existential psychiatry, and psychotherapy. This course examines these developments in the mind sciences across a variety of national contexts and relies on materials from psychological, philosophical, psychiatric, and aesthetic sources, including literature and film. Also HIST 927b.
[HSHM 631bu, The Cultures of Western Medicine: A Historical Introduction.]
HSHM 635au, Science, Arms, and the State. Daniel Kevles.
T 1.30–3.20
A history of chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons in the twentieth century that focuses on the integration in the United States of national security policy making, scientific research, and military innovation, including its consequences for the scientific community, the civilian economy, public attitudes toward weapons of mass destruction, and political movements to control them. Also HIST 945au.
HSHM 636au, Technology and Society from the Industrial Revolution. Ole Molvig.
W 3.30–5.20
Can the design of a printing press reveal as much as what it prints? This seminar explores the social impulses behind—and consequences of—technological innovation from roughly 1800 to 1975. Seminar members examine in depth three technological sectors: manufacturing, transportation, and communication. These explorations prepare participants for substantive research of their own. Sample topics include military equipment, medical instruments, domestic appliances, mass entertainment, and agricultural machinery. Also HIST 934au.
[HSHM 637au, Race and Medicine in America, 1800–2000.]
HSHM 676bu, The Engineering and Ownership of Life. Daniel Kevles.
M 1.30–3.20
The development of biological knowledge and control in relation to intellectual property rights in living organisms. Topics include agribusiness, medicine, biotechnology, and patent law. Also HIST 938bu, LAW 21441.
HSHM 677au, Biology and Society in the Twentieth Century. Daniel Kevles.
MW 11.30–12.20
A history of the interplay of modern biology, especially evolution, genetics, and molecular biology, and its social, economic, legal, and cultural context. Topics include eugenics and sterilization, the Scopes trial, contraception and abortion, the new reproductive technologies, medical genetics, the human genome project, and human cloning. Also HIST 939au.
[HSHM 678au, Alcohol and Other Drugs in American Culture.]
[HSHM 701a, Introduction to the History of Medicine and Public Health.]
HSHM 702b, Introduction to the History of Science. Daniel Kevles, Ole Molvig.
T 1.30–3.20
Study of secondary literature, recent and older, in the history of the physical and life sciences from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. Students acquire familiarity both with the development of science in general and of its major branches, including its content, instruments and methods, and social-institutional settings, and an acquaintance with various approaches that historians have followed in interpreting these events. Also HIST 931b.
[HSHM 718, Performance, Identity, and the Making of American Medicine.]
[HSHM 723a, Making the Modern Body.]
[HSHM 725a, History of Disease and Public Health in Western Societies.]
[HSHM 726b, Medicine, Public Health, and Colonialism, 1750–1950.]
HSHM 732b, Infection, Public Health, and the State. Frank Snowden.
W 3.30–5.20
This course is a comparative examination of public health strategies adopted by Western nations since 1800 with regard to high-impact infectious diseases—cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, syphilis, malaria, polio, and HIV/AIDS. The course begins with “plague regulations” and then explores such alternative policies as vaccination, the sanatorium, the sanitation idea, the regulation of prostitution, health education, and the reporting and tracing of cases. Attention is also given to state planning to confront the threat of bioterrorism and to the present emergency in sub-Saharan Africa of malaria, TB, and HIV/AIDS. The class considers the strategies of the World Health Organization and of national governments to confront the crisis. This is a reading and discussion class, but it can be taken as a research seminar with the permission of the instructor. There are no prerequisites, and no prior knowledge is assumed. Also HIST 928b.
HSHM 733a, The Grounding of Modern Medicine. John Harley Warner.
M 1.30–3.20
An introductory exploration of the shaping of modern medical culture, focusing on the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Readings engage recent historiography. Themes include struggles over the place and meanings of “science” and the intersection of lay and professional understandings of the body; shifting conceptions of purity and danger in the social and physical environments, with attention to region, gender, class, ethnicity, race, and religion; orthodox and alternative professional identities and consumer expectations in the medical marketplace; the role of imperialist ventures and European impulses in fashioning American biomedicine and public health; the medicalization of American society; antimodernist currents, and the ethical, epistemological, and aesthetic choices that were constitutive of medical modernity. A reading seminar that may be taken as a research seminar with permission of the instructor. Also AMST 880a, HIST 926a.
HSHM 734a, Readings in the History of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychotherapy. Susan Lanzoni.
Th 1.30–3.20
This seminar examines the history of psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy with special emphasis on epistemological, moral, and therapeutic views of empathy and social cognition in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Topics include aesthetic theories of empathy; empathy as a source of knowledge and healing in psychotherapy and in the doctor-patient relationship; empathy as a gendered capacity in the mother-infant bond; and the psycho-pathology of autism. We also engage broader cultural and normative views of empathy and the understanding of others in photography, film, and popular culture. Also HIST 948a.
HSHM 735a, Nursing, Health, and Social Welfare in American History. Cynthia Connolly.
T 4.30–6.20
A historical examination of the relationship between nursing and social reform in the United States between 1860 and 1992. The goal is to explore themes related to change and reform throughout nursing's history, both chronologically as well as thematically. Specifically, this elective focuses on the ways in which nurses have challenged and/or collaborated with prevailing social structures and ideologies across time and the results of those efforts. The course also considers the many variables (including race, ethnicity, class, and gender) that influenced particular events in which nursing played a role. Also NURS 737a.
[HSHM 785a, Science and Technology in American Society.]
[HSHM 912a, Reading Seminar in the History of Disease and Public Health in America.]
[HSHM 913b, Reading Seminar in the History of Life Sciences.]
HSHM 914a or b, Research Tutorial I.
By arrangement with faculty.
HSHM 915a or b, Research Tutorial II.
By arrangement with faculty.
[HSHM 919b, Research Seminar in the History of Medicine and Science.]
HSHM 920a or b, Independent Reading.
By arrangement with faculty.
HSHM 930a or b, Independent Research.
By arrangement with faculty.
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