Minor in the History of Science and Medicine

Thank you for your interest in UCLA’s Minor in the History of Science and Medicine, based in the Department of History. This page contains information about:

1) The nature of the history of science and medicine as a university subject;
2) The organization of the minor;
3) The participating faculty members and their interests;
4) The official catalog description, which contains details of course requirements

If, after reading the information below, you wish to sign up for the minor, or if you have further questions, please e-mail Eboni Shaw, Undergraduate Advisor, to set up an appointment.

The Nature of the Subject

The history of science and medicine is a discipline which, although rooted methodologically and often institutionally in departments of history, takes as its subject matter a body of ideas, practices, and persons concerned with our knowledge of the physical and biological universe. It reaches out to link up with physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, and medicine by using tools of historical analysis to explore the growth, development significance, and impact of these sciences in the Euro-American world, and beyond that into the cultures within which systems of natural knowledge have developed, or into which western science has spread.

The minor at UCLA aims to make available to bright undergraduates, many of whom are likely to be majoring in the sciences, a fill and rigorous program of analysis of science and medicine in their historical dimensions. Such an historical and cultural embedding of a scientific discipline, whether in the biological or physical sciences, can contribute to students’ understanding of their undergraduate major field, of themselves as practitioners of science or medicine, of the role of science and medicine in culture—and perhaps even foster greater productivity, creativity, and a sense of mature responsibility and satisfaction in a science- based career. A number of leading private universities, such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Pennsylvania, have long-standing, respected, and very popular programs where students do a mixture of science and history of science, often as a preparation for graduate or professional school. This minor aims to make available to UCLA undergraduates some of the intellectual content and excitement offered by such programs.

Organization of the Minor

The lower-division requirement within the minor, of three courses (or 12 units) from among seven, is designed to give the student a broad base in time and space for understanding the development of science and medicine, while still allowing significant choice that caters to a student’s particular background and predilections, Some students might have an interest in the ideas and techniques of, say, physics and mathematics; others might be more drawn towards medicine and its social interactions. The lower-division requirement allows individual students to follow their interests, while still acquiring a broad understanding of the development of science and medicine. These courses are usually medium-sized lecture classes with discussion sections.
Please note that all seven lower-division courses that can count for the minor also carry GE credit in Socials Sciences Cl (Historical Analysis), or Social Sciences C2 (Social Analysis), or Humanities. It is thus possible for a student to satisfy the requirement of three lower-division courses for the minor, and also have these courses count as three courses to satisfy GE requirements.

Students in good academic standing (2.0 grade-point average), who have completed 45 units, may declare the minor anytime after they have completed one of the lower-division courses.

The upper-division requirement of five courses (or 20 units) allows students to choose from an array of more focused classes. These courses are usually smaller, enrolling some 8- 25 students. Because the students in these classes will in most cases have had a broad background at the lower-division level, their instructors are able to pitch the course at a higher level. More use is made of primary-source documents. Students give oral reports, engage in the discussion and analysis of interpretative works, and do individual research projects. They become well-versed and even sophisticated in the important, large body of scholarship about science and medicine in history.

Some of these upper-division classes are of a seminar type, requiring a lengthy (15-30 page) paper of an interpretive or research nature. The student in the minor is required to take one such course with a research paper as a way of refining critical skills and developing talents of analysis and argument. Alternatively, the research paper may, with the approval of the faculty advisor or the graduate student advisor of the minor, or the appropriate faculty member in the course, be written in conjunction with an upper-division lecture class. In addition to the resources of the Young Research Library, students carrying out such research can thaw on the world-class holdings of rare books and first editions in the History and Special Collections Division of the Biomedical Library.

The detailed course requirements of the minor are given below in the appended extract from the UCLA General Catalog.

Faculty

The faculty teaching in the minor is one of international distinction. The core members of the group, who offer more than one course in the history of science and medicine per year, are designated in the following list with * . The list also contains a brief description of each faculty member’s research interests.

Emily Abel, (Health Services/School of Public Health, Professor): public health and care- giving in 19th- and 20th-century America.
Joel T. Braslow (Psychiatry and History, Associate Professor): psychiatry in 20th-century America
Soraya de Chadarevian * (History and Center for Society and Genetics, Professor):  biological and biomedical sciences, 19th and 20th century
Robert G. Frank, Jr. * (Neurobiology/Medical History and History, Professor): history of medicine; the laboratory medical sciences, especially physiology, in the 19th and 20th centuries; history of the neurosciences; disease and its historical effects; historical demography
Margaret Jacob * (History, Professor): the scientific revolution in its cultural, social, and economic significance; science, religion, and magic.
Theodore M. Porter * (History, Professor): physical sciences since the enlightenment; statistics and quantification in history; social sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Mary Terall * (History, Assistant Professor): the scientific revolution of the l6th-lSth centuries; science and the Enlightenment; science and gender.
Sharon Traweek * (History and Women’s Studies, Associate Professor): physical sciences and “Big Science” in the 20th century, especially accelerators; cultural anthropology of science and technology; science and technology in modem Japan; science, technology and colonialization; science, technology and gender.
Jessica Wang (History, Associate Professor): science and technology in 20th-century America; science, technology and politics.
Dora B. Weiner * (Psychiatry and History, Professor): history of medicine; psychiatry in the 18th and 19th centuries; science and the French revolution; patient care and nursing.
M. Norton Wise * (History, Professor): physical sciences, especially physics, in the 19th and 20th centuries; use of mathematics in physics; cultural impact of physics.

This permanent faculty is also frequently supplemented by visiting scholars who teach courses within the minor.

The group of historians of science and medicine at UCLA is unusually active in bringing guest speakers to campus for lectures and symposia. The History of Science Colloquium takes place in the late afternoon on Mondays 3-4 times each quarter and the UCLA Program in Medical Classics hosts well-known speakers on variety of medically related topics once a month. A cooperative venture centered at UCLA, the Southern California Colloquium in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology, sponsors three all-day conferences each year on special themes. Undergraduates who are minoring in the history of science and medicine are most welcome to attend these events.

OFFICIAL CATALOG DESCRIPTION:
The Minor in History of Science and Medicine

The minor in History of Science and Medicine is designed for students who wish to augment their major, perhaps in one of the sciences, with a series of courses that analyze the historical growth, impact, and significance of science and medicine in western and world culture. The minor consists of a choice of lower-division courses that expose the student to overviews of science and medicine in large time periods or approached with specific thematic concerns.

Upper-division courses offer more focused, often smaller classes that explore crucial episodes or areas with a more rigorous and sophisticated content and methodology.
To enter the minor, a student must be in good academic standing (2.0 grade-point average), must have completed 45 units and at least one lower-division course in the history of science or medicine for a grade, and must file a petition at the office of the undergraduate advisor in Bunche Hall.

Lower-division requirement: 3 courses from among the following:
History 3A. Introduction to the History of Science: The Scientific Revolution
History 3B. Introduction to the History of Science: Science from Newton to Darwin
History 3C. Introduction to the History of Science: Science Since 1870
History 3D, The History of Medicine
History 2B. Social Knowledge and Social Power
History 2D. Science, Magic and Religion: 1600 to the Present
Philosophy 8. Introduction to the Philosophy of Science.

Upper-division requirements: 5 courses from among the following:
Any course in the sequence History 179A-C, 180A-C or 191I; any upper division Honors Collegium course with history of science or history of medicine content; Physiological Science/Neurobiology Ml68, Neurobiology/Medical History M169, Philosophy 124, Anthropology 182, Anthropology 183.

Students may also petition to have other relevant courses, including those from other departments, applied toward the upper-division requirements of the minor.

At least one of the upper-division courses, to be selected and approved in consultation with the undergraduate advisor for the minor, must involve writing a research or interpretative paper of significant length and intellectual content.

Only one course applied toward the student’s major may also be applied toward this minor. One course may be taken P/NP; the others must be taken for letter grades, with an overall C (2.0) average or better. Transfer credit for courses may be subject to departmental approval.
Successful completion of the minor is indicated on the transcript and diploma.