About

Sewanee History Professor Kelly J. Whitmer and three colleagues from Davidson, Furman, and Washington and Lee were recently awarded an ACS Collaborative Curriculum grant entitled, “Science, Society and the Archives.” The project consists of three interrelated components: a new, collaboratively taught course, first held at Sewanee in the Spring of 2019; an online digital archives featuring teaching and research materials for use in future “Science and Society” courses and undergraduate research projects; and a “Science and Society” virtual working group and speaker series. The grant addresses issues of gender, power, race, social status and imperialism in conversations about the history and politics of science, medicine, and technology.

This course studies the sciences and their histories as social practices. It focuses on the cultural meanings and politics of scientific work in many different contexts, paying special attention to the early modern period of global history. The course also considers the important role archives play in the work that historians do. Topics of study include: scientific networks, translation, archives and imperialism; secrecy and the suppression of scientific expertise; scientific consensus, dissent and policy-making; science and gender; scientific racism; artificial intelligence and cultures of innovation; observation and the history of objectivity.

So far in 2019, DebbieLee Landi, an Archivist at Davidson College, has joined the course virtually (via Zoom) and lectured on the history of archives, including issues of inclusion/exclusion, power and knowledge in archival practice and spaces, also the history of the book, early printing and scientific image-making techniques. Dr. John Quinn, an Associate Professor of Biology at Davidson, has also joined the course virtually to discuss the place of natural history in Science and Society and some recent debates about natural history collections and their uses.

From the ACS grants database:
http://colleges.org/grants/grants-database/#14

From the Associated Colleges of the South:
http://colleges.org/grants/communities-of-practice/digital-humanities-archives/

Faculty and staff pages of the individuals across the ACS consortium who are involved in the project