History of Scientific Images

Catalog description

Science needs images. Natural history books contain drawings of plants and animals, physics books diagrams of atoms, and medical books depictions of the human body. But what makes these images ?scientific?? Why aren?t they just a work of art? In this course students will examine the history of scientific images from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. We will investigate: When did science begin to value the use of images? What purpose were scientific images meant to serve? How have technologies of production changed over time? Students will uncover who the creators of scientific images are and examine how image-making has redirected the course of knowledge. The class is addressed to anyone interested in history, art, culture, and the sciences. (HIST-HEU, HIST-HPE)