1PROVISIONAL SYLLABUS The Darwinian Revolution HIST1480, Vanderbilt University Fall 2017: TR 2:35pm-3:50pm, Wilson 113 Instructor: Alistair Sponsel Office: Benson Hall 127 Office Hours: Monday, 11am-noon and 2pm-3pm Email:[email protected] Teaching assistants: Patrick Anthony --[email protected] Anna Young–[email protected] xPat and Anna will be available for office hours (time and location TBD) each time graded work is returned. Why has evolutionary theory been such a focus of controversy in modern history? How did the name of a single individual become synonymous with a diverse collection of scientific, social, and philosophical ideas that is still expanding more than a century after his death? Can knowing the history of evolutionary theories and their uses help us to understand and engage in present day conversations about politics, education, and religion? Is there an inherent conflict between science and religion? These are the questions that will animate us this semester. Specific topics include the intellectual structure and social context of evolutionary ideas from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries; distinctions between Darwin’s and other theories of evolution, and between Darwin’s work and the broader phenomenon of Darwinism; the comparative reception of Darwinism in a range of national and cultural contexts; social Darwinism, eugenics, and racial theories; and genetics and modern evolutionary biology, including evolutionary psychology.
2I.READINGS & REQUIREMENTS This course seeks to introduce you to one of the key transformations in Western science and culture: the development of evolutionary theory. We start in Europe during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and think carefully about the way natural history and religious belief were combined. This sets the scene for discussing some of the earliest evolutionists and their radical views. We pay close attention to Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-founders of the idea of evolution by natural selection. We then expand the geographical scope and follow evolutionary thought into general culture, particularly in the United States. We move chronologically so that you acquire a sense of the continuities and changes taking place over these long periods of time. We pay special attention to the rise of creationist thinking in North America and ask what this might tell us about modern society. The goal of this course is to cultivate your abilities to analyze texts and think historically while fulfilling the following three objectives: 1.To introduce you to the study of the history of science and its methods. 2.To examine the development of an intellectual and social tradition that has shaped the world we live in today.
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