Course Description
An introduction to the role of science and technology in Russian history: the Imperial Academy, universities, disputes over Darwinism, the Soviet system of research, the fiasco of Lysenkoism in biology, successes in physics, and the unexpected triumph of Soviet space exploration.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be assigned extensive additional readings in the current research in the field and will meet weekly with the instructor outside of class for a discussion session. They will be required to write extra papers demonstrating their research and interpretive skills, as appropriate at the graduate level.
Athena Title
HIST RUS SCIENCE
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Students will be introduced to Russian culture and history, especially the twentieth-century period, through one of its key issues, the role of science and technology. Important similarities and differences with parallel developments in the United States will also help them understand the role of science and technology in the United States. A principal objective of the course is to teach students to think critically for themselves about the relationships between the past and the present, to learn to ask questions of the past that enable them to understand the present and mold the future, and to become attuned to both the limitations and possibilities of change. The course seeks to acquaint students with the ways in which past societies and peoples have defined the relationships between community and individual needs and goals, and between ethical norms and decision-making. In general students will be expected to: 1. read a wide range of primary and secondary sources critically. 2. polish skills in critical thinking, including the ability to recognize the difference between opinion and evidence, and the ability to evaluate--and support or refute--arguments effectively. 3. write stylistically appropriate and mature papers and essays using processes that include discovering ideas and evidence, organizing that material, and revising, editing, and polishing the finished papers.
Topical Outline
1. Transplantation of European science: the 18th century Academy, royal patronage, and geographical explorations. 2. Universities and the research imperative 3. Intelligentsia, student radicalism, and the birth of feminism 4. Disputes over Darwinism, physiology, and neuroscience 5. Professionals: The coming of age of Russian science 6. The Bolsheviks and bourgeois specialists 7. The cultural revolution 8. The Stalinist Academy 9. Sicence and ideology; genetics and Lysenkoism 10. The rise of Soviet physics and mathematics ll. The Atomic project 12. First in space 13. Khruschev's liberalization; scientists as dissidents 14. The end of Soviet science Suggested Readings: Graham, Loren. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union (1993) Bailes, Kendall. Technology and Society under Lenin and Stalin (1978) Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (1991) McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth (1985)