The Scientific Revolution

Catalog description

This seminar investigates the history of science in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, a time and place associated with the “scientific revolution.” The scientific revolution is a foundational narrative of modernity: a radical break from a medieval conception of the cosmos, exemplified through the emergence of a new heliocentric system of astronomy. In this course, students will read closely in the scientific texts of the period, ranging from astronomy and natural history to alchemy and magic. The seminar will examine newly emergent scientific practices from microscopy to experimentation, while also situating European science in a global perspective. At the end, students will have learned how the narrative of a “scientific revolution” emerged; why many historians today question it; and what alternatives may be put in its place. (HIST-HEU, HIST-HPE)