This page contains content from the 2008–09 academic year. For current information, visit the Harvard Extension School website at www.extension.harvard.edu.
History of Science
- HSCI E-137 History and Ethics of Biotechnology (Spring)
- HSCI E-139/W Science and Human Nature (Fall)
- HSCI E-179 Madness, Mind, and Brain: A Cultural History of Psychiatry and Neurology (Spring)
HSCI E-137
History and Ethics of Biotechnology
Course tuition: noncredit and undergraduate credit $800, graduate credit $1,725.
Spring term, section 1 (22974) (Website) (Printable version): Nadine Weidman, PhD, Lecturer in Extension, Harvard University.
Wednesdays beginning Jan. 28,
5:30-7:30 pm, Northwest Science Building, Room B101. Optional sections to be arranged.
Online and on-campus options. See Distance Education.
Lecture 1 video.
Limited enrollment.
Spring term, section 2 (23100) (Website) (Printable version): Nadine Weidman, PhD, Lecturer in Extension, Harvard University. Online only beginning January 29. Optional sections to be arranged. See Distance Education. Students must view sample online lectures before they register.
From the promise of a world without hunger to the possibility of choosing our children's traits, genetic engineering is revolutionizing agriculture, industry, and medicine in the twenty-first century, transforming our food supply, and changing the way we think about health and disease. This course examines biotechnology and genetic engineering in historical, social, political, and ethical contexts. How has biotechnology developed over the past several decades, and how should we deal with the ethical problems it poses? Topics include the history of molecular biology and genetic engineering and their connections to eugenics; ethical issues in the Human Genome Project, genetic screening, and human gene therapy; biotechnology in ecology and agriculture; controversies over cloning and the environmental release of genetically engineered organisms; and the complex relationships among scientists, industry regulators, policy makers, and the public. (4 credits)
HSCI E-139/W
Science and Human Nature (13124)
(Website) (Printable version)
Nadine Weidman, PhD, Lecturer in Extension, Harvard University.
Course tuition: noncredit $450, undergraduate credit $800, graduate credit $1,725.
Fall
term:
Tuesdays beginning Sept. 16, 5:30-7:30 pm, Harvard Hall, Room 202. Optional sections to be arranged.
This course examines competing views of human nature in the sciences in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From Charles Darwin to Sigmund Freud, from Frans Boaz to Konrad Lorenz, from Ashley Montagu to Stanley Milgram, from Sarah Blaffer Hrdy to Carl Sagan and Steven Pinker, psychologists, anthropologists, and biologists have attempted to explain in scientific terms what it means to be human. Are there human instincts, and what might these be? Or is human behavior shaped instead by environment and culture? Is man at heart a killer, or cooperative and peaceful by nature? Are humans hardwired to obey authority, or the only animals that truly possess free will? Is there a single common human nature, or different ones for man and woman? And what are the connections between these different scientific conceptions of the human animal, and the social and political contexts in which they were developed? Readings are drawn from both scientific and popular primary sources, as well as from the fiction and film inspired by them. (4 credits)
HSCI E-179
Madness, Mind, and Brain: A Cultural History of Psychiatry and Neurology (22887)
(Website) (Printable version)
Susan Lanzoni, PhD, Visiting Scholar, Science, Technology, and Society Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Course tuition: noncredit $450, undergraduate credit $800, graduate credit $1,725.
Spring
term:
Tuesdays beginning Jan. 27, 7:35-9:35 pm, Sever Hall, Room 103.
This course examines the shifting scientific and cultural understandings of madness, the mind, and brain in the European and American contexts from 1800 to the present. We review scientific developments in psychiatry and neurology as well as popular, literary, and visual representations of the mind, brain, and mental disorder. Selected topics include mesmerism, phrenology, and hypnotism; the beginning of the therapeutic asylum; degeneration and craniometry; neurasthenia, multiple personality, and hysteria in late nineteenth-century culture; Freud and the rise of psychoanalysis and psychotherapeutic society; psychopharmacology, the Prozac era; neuroimagining, and neural models of empathy in disorders such as psychopathy and autism. (4 credits)