Discorsi

Issue 2, January 1994

The History of Science Collections and the Department of the History of Science at the University of Oklahoma are hosting the annual meeting of the Midwest Junto for the History of Science in the spring of 1994. The Junto meeting will take place during March 25 to March 27 at the campus facilities of the Oklahoma Center for Continuing Education.

Marilyn Ogilvie, Curator of the History of Science Collections and Adjunct Associate Professor of the History of Science, is president of the Junto during 1994. The year 1994 marks the fortieth anniversary of Emeritus Professor Duane H. D. Roller's inauguration of a long and distinguished tenure as Curator of the History of Science Collections, established through the gift of Everette Lee DeGolyer.

In a recent letter in response to the first issue of Discorsi, Savoie Lottinville, Regents Professor Emeritus in History and Director Emeritus of the University of Oklahoma Press, recalled the origins of the History of Science Collections.

In the spring of 1946, Everette Lee DeGolyer, Class of 1911 and former student of Vernon Louis Parrington, appeared in Savoie Lottinville's office at the Press. DeGolyer's offer of a check to be used for purchasing all of the important books in science in their first printed editions quickly resulted in a telephone call to University President George Lynn Cross, followed by the appointment of a university committee for the history of science.

Some years later Jens Rud Nielsen, former student of Niels Bohr and Professor in the OU Department of Physics, suggested the appointment of a professionally trained instructor in the discipline of the history of science, someone capable of building both a unique library and a teaching program. Indeed Professor Nielsen had someone specifically in mind as a candidate for the job: a recent Ph.D. graduate of Harvard University and the son of former OU physics professor Duane Emerson Roller who himself was an author of studies in the history of science. After interviews with candidates, Duane H. D. Roller was chosen in 1954 to be the first Curator of the History of Science Collections and an Assistant Professor in the Department of History.

The Collections and the Department welcome the opportunity to host the 1994 meeting of the Midwest Junto. Inquiries about the Junto should be made to Marilyn Ogilvie, History of Science Collections, Bizzell Memorial Library, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019; Tel. 405-325-2741 or Fax 405-325-7618. Room reservations can be made at the Sooner House, OCCE, 405-329-2270.

February 1993 Conference on "Transmission and Science: Cultural Exchange in the Premodern World"

Well over one-hundred people attended the 25-27 February conference on "Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Science and Cultural Exchange in the Premodern World." During this three-day period, sixteen speakers and five commentators from the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Israel examined various aspects of the transmission of science in ancient Mediterranean, Islamic, Indian, medieval Latin, and early modern European cultures.

The conference was the capstone event for the 1991-1993 Rockefeller Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in the Humanities focussed on the theme of "Western Assimilation and Transformation of Classical and Islamic Science" that brought Sonja Brentjes (University of Leipzig), George Molland (Aberdeen University), Marina Tolmacheva (Washington State University), and PaulLettinck (Free University, Amsterdam) to the University of Oklahoma for fellowship tenures. The conference was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences, the University of Oklahoma Associates, and the Oklahoma Foundation for the Humanities.

The conference's central session on "Scientific Appropriation and Naturalization" focussed on well-known and sometimes controversial arguments made about the relationship between Islamic science and "western science" posed by one of the most distinguished scholars in the field of Islamic science, Professor A. I. Sabra of Harvard University. The exploration of the applicability of Sabra's notions of "appropriation" and "naturalization" of knowledge to a variety of cultural contexts provided the over-arching theme for the conference as a whole.

Steve Livesey and Jamil Ragep are editing a volume based on papers from both the February 1993 conference and the March 1992 conference on "Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Ancient Mathematics in Islamic and Occidental Cultures," also supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. The volume will be dedicated to A. I. Sabra.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a grant of $215,000 to the University of Oklahoma in support of a new program based in the University's History of Science Collections and the History of Science Department. The program will focus on the "Historical Intersections of the Biological and Social Sciences," bringing postdoctoral fellows to the university and supporting research and teaching over a period of approximately five years.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, located in New York City, is one of the ten largest philanthropic foundations in the United States and is named for Andrew W. Mellon, who served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932. One of its founders, Paul Mellon, is a former president of the National Gallery of Art, to which the Foundation has made significant contributions. The Foundation's support for higher education has included programs of Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships at other institutions, as well as a graduate fellowship program in the humanities.

An Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Oklahoma will be awarded as a research and teaching fellowship for each of five consecutive academic years during 1994-1999. Fellows will spend most of their time on research projects. Each fellow also will teach one course or seminar during the spring or fall in his or her subject matter. Fellows will be drawn from junior and senior scholars who are doing research that focuses on the convergences of the biological and social sciences.

Areas of emphasis include historical studies of the intersections of biology, behavior, and codes of human conduct; science, gender, and sexuality; or theories of natural order rooted in the ecological and social sciences. A research workshop of invited scholars will be sponsored by the Mellon Foundation program during 1996-1997.

In recent years, the Department of History of Science has built strengths in the area of the history of the biological and social sciences, drawing upon the work of several faculty members, especially Gregg Mitman, Robert Nye, and Marilyn Ogilvie. The Fellowship award for 1994-1995 will be announced by the end of March 1994. Inquiries about applications for 1995-1996 and subsequent awards should be addressed to: Dr. Gregg Mitman; History of Science Department; 601 Elm St., Rm. 622; The University of Oklahoma; Norman, OK 73019-0315; Tel. 405-325-2213; Fax: 405-325-2363 or 405-325-5068; E-mail: aa2214@uokmvsa.bitnet.

"Conceiving the Commons" and NEH/FIPSE/NEH Grant

The Department of History of Science at the University of Oklahoma is one of four departments within the College of Arts and Sciences that has been instrumental in obtaining funds from the Leadership Opportunity in Science and Humanities Education Program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and the National Science Foundation. The project is entitled "Conceiving the Commons: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Environmental Literacy."

The program, one of fifteen funded nation-wide, will establish an integrated, interdisciplinary curriculum that will study environmental issues from the perspectives of the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. The project is being directed by Gregg Mitman (History of Science), Zev Trachtenberg (Philosophy), Linda Wallace (Botany), and Betsy Gunn (Political Science). The project begins in the spring of 1994 with a faculty development seminar that will bring faculty together from the College of Arts and Sciences to discuss how the methods and concepts of various disciplines are applied to environmental issues and to plan the introductory course, which will be offered by Professors Gunn, Mitman, Trachtenberg, and Wallace in the fall of 1994.

In addition, Professor Mitman will be developing a new history of science course, "The History of Ecology and Environmentalism," that will be offered in the spring of 1995. This course will serve as a core course in this new interdisciplinary curriculum.

Visitors and Speakers During 1993

This past year has been another busy one of invited speakers who have visited the department. In early February, Lisa Cartwright of the Department of English & Visual and Cultural Studies Program at the University of Rochester presented a talk on "the Failure of Organic Signs: Neurophysiology and the Film Motion Study." Prof. Cartwright's visit was jointly sponsored by the Biomedical and Health Care Ethics Program, the Honors Program, and Film & Video Studies, and thus it helped forge previously unestablished links with other programs on campus.

In March, the Department co-hosted Dr. Kenneth R. Manning from the Program in History of Science & Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Other sponsors were the Minority Graduate Student Association, the Speakers Bureau, and OU Housing. Dr. Manning presented a public lecture on "The Complexion of Science" and a colloquium talk on "Writing Biography in the History of Science."

In April, Kathleen Wellman from the Department of History at Southern Methodist University presented her work on "Science and Social Issues in the Discourses of the Virtuosi of France" to faculty and students from the history of science, history and philosophy departments. Her husband, Dennis Sepper, from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Dallas, gave a talk the following day to the history of science and philosophy departments on "Imagining Descartes."

Pamela Gossin, a visiting assistant professor in our department, brought the spring semester lecture series to a close with her lecture on "All Danae to the Stars: Fictional Women and Real Astronomy in Thomas Hardy Novels."

Frederic L. Holmes, Professor of the History of Medicine at Yale University, opened the series of visitors for the fall semester with a public lecture on "Investigative Pathways as an Organizing Metaphor for Scientific Biography" and a talk to the department on "Representation of DNA in the Meselson-Stahl Experiment." His visit was co-sponsored by the OU Speakers Bureau, the History of Science Club, and the Departments of Chemistry and Zoology.

In October, Martin Rudwick from the University of California-San Diego delivered a widely attended public lecture entitled "Picturing the Prehuman Past" illustrated with material from his recent book Scenes from Deep Time. He also presented a colloquium to the history of science and geology/geophysics departments on "Learning to Read the Archives of Nature."

In early November, Norriss Hetherington, Research Associate at the University of California-Berkeley, presented a public lecture sponsored by the OU Speakers Bureau, the History of Science Club, and the Department of Physics and Astronomy on "Theory and Observation in the History of Astronomy: Myth and Reality." He also presented a colloquium to the department on "Public Opinion, Politics, and War: Factors in the Changing Relation between Science and the State."

We are fortunate to have had such a full year of distinguished scholars from across the country and every effort is underway to continue the quality and number of speakers visiting our Norman campus. The History of Science Club, led by this year's president Shawn Smith, has been especially important in securing support from Speakers Bureau for visiting scholars.

Graduate Research Award

The History of Science Graduate Research Award for excellent research accomplishment in the history of science during the year 1992 was presented to Kuang-tai Hsu and Michael N. Keas, each of whom received $100. The award was made for Dr. Hsu's chapter "Steno's Conceptual Innovation of Stratification in the Canis," pp. 146-165 in "Nicolaus Steno and His Sources: The Legacy of the Medical and Chemical Traditions in his Early Geological Writings" (Ph.D. thesis, 1992) and for Dr. Keas' section "The Social and Cultural Milieu of the College of Chemistry," pp. 201-234 in "The Structure and Philosophy of Group Research: August Wilhelm Hofmann's Research Program in London (1845-1865)" (Ph.D. thesis, 1992).

This award is made possible through the generosity of an anonymous donor to the History of Science Department.

Gifts and Contributions

The History of Science Collections and History of Science Department have been pleased to receive gifts in support of the Duane H. D. Roller Book Fund, general History of Science Collections acquisitions, and the History of Science Department Fund in support of research and teaching activities of faculty and students. Gifts can be designated through the University of Oklahoma Foundation for these and other purposes. Among the long-term goals of the Department are establishment of endowments for a distinguished professorship in the history of science, a graduate fellowship in the history of science, and a fund for small travel grants to enable scholars and students to travel to Norman to use the resources of the History of Science Collections. Gifts can be made through the OU Foundation, 100 Timberdell Road, Norman, OK 73019, Tel. 405-321-1174 (Ron D. Burton, Executive Director) or the OU Office of University Affairs, 730 College Avenue, Rm. 338; Norman, OK 73019, Tel. 405-325-3701 (Donna M. Murphy, Director of Development).

Recent Degrees

Timothy W. Kneeland completed a 1993 Master's degree in History of Science with his thesis "Managing Science and Technology: A Study of Change, 1868-1919," directed by Mary Jo Nye along with Gregg Mitman and, from the History Department, David Levy. Tim Kneeland is studying for the doctoral degree in the Department of History, where he was recognized as the outstanding graduate student for the 1992-1993 academic year.

Judith Machen of Los Alamos, New Mexico, won the 1993 MLS Academic Achievement Award as the outstanding graduating student in OU's Master of Liberal Studies program. Her MLS thesis, "Cultural Values and the Vitality of the West: The Mind of Lynn White, Jr.," was directed by Kenneth L. Taylor. Steven J. Livesey also was a member of the committee.

New Dual Degree Program With SLIS

In addition to the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the History of Science, the department also now offers a dual degree program: the Master of Arts in History of Science with the Master of Library and Information Studies. Students applying for the dual degree program indicate as their major field both History of Science and Library and Information Science and meet the requirements for admission of both departments. Once admitted, a student is assigned a joint advising committee and takes the comprehensive master's degree examination in each department. The total course-load requirement is 18 courses or 54 credit hours total, with 27 credit hours in each department. This new program draws upon the strengths of the History of Science Collections and faculty in both the History of Science Department and the School of Library and Information Studies who have expertise in the study of science resource materials.

Graduate Student Research and Activities

JoAnn Palmeri attended a three-day workshop on the history of astronomy at the campus of Notre Dame University during 24-27 June 1993. She has been elected to serve as a member of the Coordinating Committee of the newly created History of Science Interest Group in the History of Astronomy.

Laurel Smith presented a paper entitled "Life-Groups and Life-Zones: Otis Mason and Anthropological Exhibitions" at the annual meeting of the Society for Literature and Science in Boston, Massachusetts during 18-21 November 1993. This work is part of her research for a master's thesis focussed on late nineteenth-century American anthropology.

Deborah Kay, Mark Eddy, JoAnn Palmeri, Aaron Poffenberger, and Lynne Williams all attended the annual meeting of the History of Science Society in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during November 11-14, with some travel assistance from the Department.

Currently six students are writing Ph.D. theses and five students are working on master's theses.

Alumni News

Hyesik Choi (M.A., 1991) is Assistant Professor and Cataloger at the Duane G. Meyer Library of Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield.

Brad Cooper (M.A., 1992) and Scott Downie (M.A., 1991) have obtained a patent for an alarm clock game. Brad is a student in the Law School at Southern Methodist University and Scott works for a music computer firm in San Diego.

John H. Eddy, Jr. (Ph.D., 1977), Colorado Springs, has retired and now will teach part-time at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Julie Eddy is the Associate Director of the Tutt Library at Colorado College and published Homesteading Women: An Oral History of Colorado in 1993.

Jun Fudano (Ph.D., 1990) is Director of the Office of International Programs at Kanazawa Institute of Technology in addition to his duties as Associate Professor of the History of Science and Technology. Roko Fudano is Director of the KIT-Summer Program in Japanese.

Kuang-tai Hsu (Ph.D., 1992) is Associate Professor in the General Education Department at the National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan. Among his new responsibilities is editorial assistance to Professor Yi-Long Huang for the Newsletter for the History of Chinese Science.

Michael Keas (Ph.D., 1992) is Assistant Professor of Natural Sciences at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee. His article on Ernest Rutherford appeared in 1993 in Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, 1901-1992, ed. Laylin K. James.

Dwayne Mason (M.A., 1966; University of Wisconsin at Platteville) writes that he and Barbara have lived in Platteville, Wisconsin now for 27 years and they have three grandchildren.

Douglas McPherson, Mescalero, NM, writes that after taking graduate courses in history of science in 1972, he completed a M.D. degree at the University of New Mexico in 1987 and practices family medicine on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation.

Liba Taub (Ph.D., 1987), Curator of the History of Astronomy Collection at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, published her first book, Ptolemy's Universe. The Natural Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Ptolemy's Astronomy (Chicago: Open Court, 1993). Dr. Taub is a visiting scholar at the Whipple Museum of Cambridge University during the 1993-1994 academic year.

We have learned with regret of the deaths of Mary Suzanne Kelly (Ph.D., 1964) and Joyce Ospovat, wife of Alex Ospovat (Ph.D., 1960).

News Notes of Faculty and Staff

Marcia Goodman has had a particularly busy but enjoyable year assisting the staff working on the Department of Education Title IIC grant to catalog the Collections' 15th-17th century materials. With that almost done, they are now working feverishly on the 18th century. Marcia tells us that her fondest hope is to see all the early books cataloged before her retirement in December 1994the idealistic dream of a true librarian! She also had an enjoyable trip to the History of Science Society meeting in Santa Fe, where she attended sessions, enjoyed the offerings of the town, but most of all enjoyed visiting with old friends.

Marcia also provided the traditional good cheer and good chili for her annual Collections Christmas party after tracking down chili chef Mark Amspacher at his new restaurant kitchen. George Goodman joined in for the party, as did Duane H. D. Roller and Marjorie, who have spent the year mostly in Norman. Thomas M. Smith continues his collaboration with Kent C. Redmond on the history of computers and along with Libba speaks frequently of the joys of being a grandparent.

Pamela Gossin, Visiting Assistant Professor during 1993, has accepted a position at the University of Missouri's technological campus at Rolla. She will direct the development of a new undergraduate program in Literature and Science Studies. She will be teaching a seminar "Steam, Stars, and Strata: Literary Encounters with Science in Nineteenth-Century Britain" and an interdisciplinary writing course.

Dr. Gossin's current project, "Living Poetics, Making the Cosmos: The Popularization of Astronomy in Diane Ackerman's The Planets" has been supported by a Pollock-Dudley Research Award from the Dudley Observatory. It will be included in a volume of essays tentatively entitled Using Nature's Languages: Women Engendering Science, 1700-1975, edited by Barbara T. Gates and Ann B. Shteir.

David B. Kitts and Nancy Kitts spent the months of September to December in France, living in Chelles, just outside of Paris, and travelling to the region of Perigord and the Dordogne, as well as to London. He continues to work on a book manuscript on Charles Darwin's argument in the first four chapters of the Origins of Species.

Steven J. Livesey, Nina, Daniel, and Elizabeth are spending the 1993-1994 academic year in Paris, where he was awarded funding from the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) for his project "A Prosopographical Database of Medieval Commentators on Aristotle and Peter Lombard's Sentences." As "directeur de recherche associé 3eme echelon," Steve is collaborating with Jean-Philippe Genet at the University of Paris (Sorbonne) in mutual interests on the construction of medieval databases. The Livesey family's address through July is 4, impasse Morlet, 75011, Paris. There were sightings of Dave Kitts and Steve Livesey discussing Aristotle in the bois de Vincennes during their overlapping sojourns in France.

J. Rosser Matthews has joined the Department for the spring semester of 1994 as Visiting Assistant Professor. Dr. Matthews took his Ph.D. in the history of science from Duke University in 1992. He has taught at Duke University and North Carolina State University. Rosser Matthews' doctoral dissertation treated the problem of "Mathematics and the Quest for Medical Certainty: The Emergence of the Clinical Trial, 1800-1950." The dissertation is currently under revision as a book manuscript. His articles on statistical methods in medicine are in press with the Bulletin of the History of Medicine and the Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences. He will be teaching two sections of 3013 (History of Science to the Age of Newton) and a seminar/ special topics course with the title: "Statistics, Science, and Society: 1650 to the Present."

Gregg Mitman travelled to Bergen, Norway in late May and early June to present a paper on "Changing Conceptions of the 'Natural' and Normative in Twentieth-Century Ecology" at a conference on "The Notion of Sustainability and Its Normative Implications." After spending three long days discussing theoretical and political issues pertaining to nature and the environment, he managed to spend a few days experiencing the real thing by hiking in the region and taking a boat and train tour through the fiords. In July, he presented a paper entitled "When Nature is the Zoo: Scientific and Popular Spectacle at Jackson Hole, Wyoming" at the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology Meetings at Brandeis University. In early August, he travelled to Laramie, Wyoming and Denver, Colorado to do archival research, only to find that the Denver Public Library was shutting down during the week of the Pope's visit. Luckily, he managed to get through all the materials before the pontiff's arrival. This fall, Mitman was pleased to learn that he had been awarded a National Science Foundation grant for his project "Cinematic Nature: Hollywood Technology, Popular Culture, and the Science of Animal Behavior, 1920-1960." And inside the cover of the December issue of Isis, highlighted by some rather ferocious looking Komodo dragons, readers will find an article by Mitman on aspects of this recently funded project.

Mary Jo Nye was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the spring of 1993. She was one of 195 elected to membership in 1993 and is the only person in Oklahoma among the Academy's current membership of approximately 3,800 fellows and foreign honorary members. During the August 1993 General Assembly meeting in Zaragoza, Spain, she was elected Second Vice-President of the Division of History of Science of the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science. Among her publications in 1993 were "National Styles? French and English Chemistry in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries," Osiris, 2nd series, v. 8 (1993); and From Chemical Philosophy to Theoretical Chemistry. Dynamics of Matter and Dynamics of Disciplines, 1800-1950 (University of California Press, 1993).

Robert A. Nye's book Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France appeared in 1993, as did two essays, "The Medical Origins of Sexual Fetishism," in Emily Apter and William Pietz, eds., Fetishism as Cultural Discourse (Cornell University Press, 1993); and "The Rise and Fall of the Eugenics Empire: Recent Perspectives on the History of Bio-Medical Thought" in The Historical Journal (v. 36, 1993).

Marilyn Ogilvie attended the International Congress of the Division of History of Science of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science in Zaragoza, Spain, 22-29 August 1993. While there, she was able to buy some books for the Collections. Ken Taylor's friend Dr. Ezio Vaccari, historian of science at the University of Genoa, reported that he met Marilyn in Zaragoza..."One day I saw her buying about half a bookshop for your library." Dr. Ogilvie and the Collections were successful in obtaining a second grant from the Department of Education, this one to catalog the Collections's uncataloged eighteenth-century books. Last year a similar grant was obtained for cataloging fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth-century books.

F. Jamil Ragep was awarded tenure in the Department and promoted to Associate Professor. After working closely with Steve Livesey to stage the February conference on "Tradition, Transmission, and Transformation," he spent the next two months trying desperately between classes to get all the bugs, kinks and whathaveyou out of his camera-ready copy for his book on Tusi's astronomy to be published by Springer-Verlag. (The laser printer balked when it came to printing Arabic.) With thirty minutes to spare, he discovered it takes thirty-five minutes to get to the Federal Express Building at the airport. Nevertheless, a two-volume edition, translation, commentary, and interpretation of the Tadhkira of al-Tusi appeared in summer of 1993. Instead of sensibly taking a restful vacation, Jamil Ragep reports that he and his family drove to Cambridge, Mass. for the summer where he worked on two other projectsa Persian work by Tusi and the Planetary Hypotheses by Ptolemy, the latter in collaboration with David Pingree at Brown University. Returning to Norman, he found, much to his delight, that Deborah Kay and Aaron Poffenberger were willing to take the plunge and learn Arabic. Strange noises have recently been reported emanating from his office.

Kenneth L. Taylor published two essays during 1993: "The Epoques de la Nature and Geology during Buffon's Later Years," in Buffon 88, a Buffon bicentenary volume edited by Jean Gayon (Paris: Vrin, 1992); and "The Historical Rehabilitation of Theories of the Earth," in The Compass (v. 69, 1992). This is the last of Ken Taylor's four-year term chairing the U.S. National Committee on the History of Geology. The committee is largely responsible for arranging the Geological Society of America-sponsored Penrose Conference scheduled for March 1994 in San Diego. Entitled "From the Inside and the Outside: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the History of the Earth Sciences," this conference will bring together historical-minded scientists, historians, sociologists, and philosophers involved in research on geology's history.