ENGLISH 501-01: IMAGINING SCIENCE
Gary Williams, Summer 2008
TEXTS:
Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories (Dover Thrift;
0486270602)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Signet
Classics; 0451529073)
Henry David Thoreau, Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition (Yale UP;
0300104669)
Henry David Thoreau, Material Faith: Thoreau on Science (Mariner;
0395948002)
Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Tales (Oxford; 0192832247)
Charles Darwin, Darwin (Norton Critical Edition; 0393958493)
Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains (Random; 0812973011)
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Penguin; 0143038583)
E.O. Wilson, The Creation (Norton; 9780393330489)
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:
June 9
Introduction and organization
June 10 Emerson: “Nature” (intro and Chs 1-2; 6-8), “The American Scholar,”
“Self-Reliance”
June 11 Emerson: “Experience,” “Fate,” “Thoreau”
June 12 Thoreau: Walden, 2, 7, 11.
June 16
Thoreau: Walden, 12, 15, 17.
June 17 Thoreau: Material Faith; excerpt from The Dispersion of Seeds
June 18 Hawthorne: “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” “The Birthmark,” “Rappaccini’s
Daughter”
June 19 Poe: “William Wilson,” “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains,” The Purloined
Letter,” The Imp of the Perverse,” Von Kempelen and his Discovery”
June 23 Darwin:
The Origin of Species (95-174); Gopnik, "Rewriting Nature"
(online). essay due.
June 24 Darwin and Wilson: The Descent of Man (225-54); The
Creation (3-54; 73-109; 165-68)
June 25 Wilson and Gore: View An Inconvenient Truth; consider opposing
points of view. For your interest: Tierney, "The Aria of Prince Algorino,"
June 26 Zellnik: Serendib (online)
June 30 Pollan:
“Corn”; Berreby, "A Bird's Life" (online); Finkel, "Bedlam in the Blood:
Malaria" (online)
July 1 Pollan: “Grass”; Halpern and Revkin (online).
Joy Passanante offers suggestions for effective writing about science.
July 2 Farmer (Kidder): excerpt from Pathologies of Power (handout)
July 3 Moore: Sicko
July 31 ESSAY DUE.
REQUIREMENTS:
**Lead the discussion on one or two of the works during the first two weeks,
providing suggestions for how the work(s) might be read against a backdrop of 19th-century
science. Books on reserve here.
**A 1500-word essay based on your report, due June 23 (beginning of third week).
EVERYONE'S ESSAY HERE.
**A 2500-word essay in which you deliver scientific data in a
lively, accessible way, due before the end of July.
ONLINE MATERIALS:
Science Timeline
American Scientist
Online
James, Trefil, "Science Education
for Everyone: Why and What?" (Liberal Education, Spring 2008, Vol.
94, No. 2)
John Tierney, "The Aria of Prince Algorino," New
York Times, June 17, 2008 (opera of An Inconvenient Truth)
David
Berreby, "A Bird's Life" (New Yorker, November 5, 2007)
Dr. Atul Gawande, "The Checklist" (New
Yorker, December 10, 2007)
Adam Gopnik, "Rewriting Nature," (New Yorker, October 23, 2006
The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online
Michael Le Page, "24 Myths About Evolution" New Scientist, 16 April 2008
Michael
Finkel, "Bedlam in the Blood: Malaria" (National Geographic, July 2007)
Partners in Health
David
Zellnik, Serendib
David Zellnik's Serendib
page
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Wolfgang Dittus
Andrew Revkin, "Human Shadows on the Seas" (New York Times, February 26,
2008)
POKY Feeders Inc., Garden
City, Kansas
"An organic milk war turns sour" (Marc Gunther, Fortune, October 3, 2007,
about Mark Retzloff)
Gianluca Farusi,
"Teaching Science and Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Approach"