There are two writing assignments in this class. The first is a 4-5 page book review of one of the books in the syllabus. The second is a 20-25 page historiographical essay. For the historiographical essay, students should select at least two books from the syllabus, read other works by the same authors along with contrasting works on the same topic by other authors, and situate the main books within the wider historiography.
Titles of Selected Student Papers
Situating Mice, Men, and Model Organisms: Historical Narratives in Colonial Nation Building and Scientific Fact Making.
Historiographical Review of Science and Empire in the Eighteenth Century: The Cases of Britain and France.
Life as Instrument: Some Recent Histories of Research Organisms and Their Relevance to the History of Wildlife Radio-Tracking.
Historiography of Electrification.
Conjuring, Craft and Creativity in the Embodied Arts of Model Making: A Historiography of Models in Biology.
The Social Origins and Development of the Accademia del Cimento, the Royal Society, and the Académie des Sciences.
Every Man a Thing, Every Thing a Man.