Joy of Science Syllabus

Feminist Theory and the Joy of Science

"All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child"

-- Marie Curie

"We especially need imagination in science. 
It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but somewhat beauty and poetry."

-- Maria Mitchell

Course themes:

This course explores the existence of pleasure, intellectual excitement, and desire as an important component of theorizing and doing science and engineering.  We will examine the presence and/or absence of accounts of pleasure/desire in feminist theories of science, and in mainstream science and engineering texts and pedagogy.  We will also examine feminist accounts of what might be termed the diversity challenge in engineering, and how feminist theories of science and pleasure can inform this issue.  The implications for an adequate feminist theory of science, and for attracting members of underrepresented groups to science and engineering, will be a focus of the course. 

Course objectives:

The readings and exercises in this course are designed to introduce students to issues characteristic of feminist scholarship in science studies.  In addition, a team project is designed to give students the opportunity to experience and analyze the pleasure of using tools and understanding technology.

Books:

Required:

GSR -- The Gender and Science Reader  ed. Muriel Lederman and Ingrid Bartsch

BIS -- Building Inclusive Science:  Connecting Women's Studies and Women in Science and Engineering  special issue, Women's Studies Quarterly (28:1-2)

PPT -- Pleasure, Power, & Technology  Sally Hacker

EPE -- The Existential Pleasures of Engineering  Samuel C. Florman

SNS -- The Same and Not the Same  Roald Hoffmann

Also:  two selections from Sister Outsider Audre Lorde

Other readings as noted in the syllabus

Requirements:

All readings must be completed by the dates indicated on the schedule below.  Some class sessions will be conducted on the model of a seminar, in which we will discuss the readings and their significance.  For others there will be a planned activity, and all students will be expected to participate fully in the activity.  Verbal participation in class discussions should be offered in a candid, thoughtful, and respectful manner. Intellectual conflict is necessary and healthy for learning, and I encourage seminar participants to question the positions and views of colleagues and authors.  However, please address specific ideas and arguments, and refrain from characterizing each others' arguments in comprehensive terms (i.e., as racist, homophobic, etc.). 

What we accomplish together in discussion will determine the quality of the course; therefore, attendance is required for all class sessions.  Assignments, whether written or oral, must be delivered when they are due.  Graded assignments that are not handed in when due will be subject to a penalty. 

Grading Policy:

Theoretical Analysis

The use of theoretical literature in scholarship requires understanding of the particular arguments and conclusions in the text, as well as of the larger literature and theoretical context in which a text is located.  This Theoretical Analysis exercise is constructed to encourage students to scrutinize and present these dimensions of texts.

For each reading from The Gender and Science Reader and Building Inclusive Science, create a page that includes the following: a complete citation for the article under consideration, a one sentence summary of the article, and a paragraph of analysis (no longer than 200 words) in which you contextualize the article in relation to the course theme of pleasure and science.  The Theoretical Analysis assignment is due as indicated in the course schedule.  For Pleasure, Power, and Technology, complete a Theoretical Analysis for Chapter 3 "Discipline and Pleasure in Engineering".  For The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, complete a Theoretical Analysis for Chapter 8 "Toward an Existential Philosophy of Engineering". For The Same and Not the Same, complete a Theoretical Analysis for Chapter 14 "The Semiotics of Chemistry".

Group Presentation and Papers

Public presentations, theoretical writing, and evaluation of the intellectual work of colleagues are activities fundamental to the scholarly enterprise.  Scholars are often thought of as lone practitioners who have little contact with colleagues, but cooperation and mutual evaluation are crucial to the production of ideas.  This is especially true in the sciences and engineering.  Whether in public contexts (such as conferences, collaborative research, and activism) or in more isolated contexts (such as sharing work with colleagues and engaging in peer-review processes), scholars connect with each other to mutual benefit. 

Ø       Group Presentations: The class will be divided into groups.  As noted in the syllabus, members of groups will be responsible for presenting the essays assigned for that week through papers that summarize and critique individual assigned essays.  Presentations will approximate a research forum of the sort provided by disciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarly conferences.  In preparation for the seminar, each presenter should have read the essays and papers of other group members and be prepared to discuss with the group her own paper in the context of other group members' papers.  Rather than reading your paper, you should be able to summarize your main points and conclusions in no more than ten minutes.  Remember: keeping time and staying on point are important dimensions of public presentations.  I will serve as the "chair" of the panel, but I will expect group members to be largely responsible for class discussion on presentation days.

Ø       First Draft Paper: Each group member will be responsible for writing a paper of approximately 1600 to 2000 words on one assigned essay.  The goal of this exercise is to write a coherent, closely-argued/structured critical paper.  The paper should: 1) summarize the main arguments and conclusions of the essay under consideration, and 2) comment critically on these arguments and conclusions using the arguments of at least one other author.  All standards of scholarly writing apply, including the proper use of notes (if any) and bibliography.  A first draft is due in the last week of class.  Each seminar member will extensively evaluate the paper of a colleague, and the comments that emerge from this evaluation will be available as everyone begins final revisions of the paper.

Ø       Final Draft Paper: The final draft of the paper is due in my office on the last day of class. 

Team Project and Individual Paper

The class will be divided into teams of 2 or 3.  Each team will carry out disassembly and reassembly of a common electric hand mixer.  Tools will be provided.  Teams will be responsible for a single team report that includes the following: a brief description of the process of disassembly and reassembly; a labeled sketch (to the best of your ability) of the internal workings of the mixer, and a brief discussion of the team's understanding of how the mixer works as a result of the process.  The entire report should be no more than 3 or 4 pages long.  Each team member should sign the report to testify that they participated in the experience and agree with the report as presented. 

Each team member will also be responsible for an individual two-part essay on the experience.  In this essay, you should adopt the analytical point of view/authorial voice (to the best of your ability) of one of the authors of an article we have read from The Gender and Science Reader.  This part of the essay should be approximately 1500-2000 words.  The second part of the essay will consist of your commentary on the first half of the essay.  Describe how well the approach you adopted captures the experience you had, and what, if anything, you were not able to address using that approach.  This part of the essay should be no longer than approximately 1000 words. 

The Theoretical Analysis, Final Paper, Team Project Report, and Individual Paper are each worth 25% of your final grade. 

Week 1

Course Introduction -- Where Are We Now?

GSR Section 1:  Eisenhart and Finkel, Women (Still) Need Not Apply; Brainard and Carlin, A Six-Year Longitudinal Study of Undergraduate Women in Engineering and Science; Silverman, NSF Employment Study Confirms Issues Facing Women, Minorities; Wenneras and Wold, Nepotism and Sexism in Peer-Review; Hubbard, Science and Science Criticism; Spanier, How I Came to This Study; Keller, From Working Scientist to Feminist Critic

Week 2

Where Are We Now?  continued

BIS pp. 13-103:  Rayman and Stewart, Reaching for Success in Science:  Women's Uneven Journey; Bix, Feminism Where Men Predominate:  The History of Women's Science and Engineering Education at MIT; Fox, Organizational Environments and Doctoral Degrees Awarded to Women in Science and Engineering Departments; Grant, Kennelly, and Ward, Revisiting the Gender, Marriage, and Parenthood Puzzle in Scientific Careers; Benckert and Staberg, Women in Chemistry and Physics:  Questions of Similarity and Difference

As you work on your Theoretical Analyses for the first two weeks' readings, you may want to consider these questions:  Why might women want to become scientists or engineers?  Would their possible motivations differ from, or be in addition to, things that might make men want to become scientists or engineers?

Week 3

Desire and Science:  Women in Science

BIS pp. 104-127,143-1164, 271-304:  Margolis, Fisher, and Miller, The Anatomy of Interest:  Women in Undergraduate Computer Science; Miller, Rosser, Benigno, and Ziesniss, A Desire to Help Others:  Goals of High-Achieving Female Science Undergraduates; Tucker, Promoting Success in Math among African-American Female Children; Hynes, Toward a Laboratory of One's Own:  Lesbians in Science; Ginorio, Marshall, and Breckenridge, The Feminist and the Scientist:  One and the Same; Subramaniam, Snow Brown and the Seven Detergents:  A Metanarrative on Science and the Scientific Method

Week 4

Desire and Science:  Feminists on Science

GSR Section III:  Rosser, Are There Feminist Methodologies Appropriate for the Natural Sciences and Do They Make A Difference?; Harding, Feminist Standpoint Epistemology; Haraway, Situated Knowledges:  The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective; Harding, Is Science Multicultural?  Challenges, Resources, Opportunities, Uncertanties; Longino, Subjects, Power, and Knowledge:  Description and Prescription in Feminist Philosophies of Science; Lukacs, Heisenberg's Recognitions:  The End of the Scientific World View

As you work on your Theoretical Analyses for these readings, you may want to reconsider these questions:  Why might women want to become scientists or engineers?  Would their possible motivations differ from, or be in addition to, things that might make men want to become scientists or engineers?

Week 5

Pleasure, Power, and Technology

PPT pp. 1-72 (all of Section I)

Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power and The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House from Sister Outsider

Week 6

Existential Pleasure and Engineering

EPE -- all of parts I, II, and III, and Ch. 13 "Women and Engineering"

Walt Whitman, Passage to India from Leaves of Grass

Week 7

SNS -- all of parts I and II. 

Video -- The Chemistry of Creativity

Week 8

SNS -- all of parts III and IV. 

Video -- The Chemistry of Power

Week 9

Desire and Practice:  Feminists on Science

GSR Section IV -- Fausto-Sterling, Life in the XY Corral; Haraway, The Biopolitics of a Multicultural Field; Spanier, Foundations for a 'New Biology' ; Zweifel, The Gendered Nature of Biodiversity Conservation; Meinert, The Inclusion of Women in Clinical Trials

Week 10

Desire and Practice:  Feminist Visions for Science

GSR Section VI -- Kerr, Toward a Feminist Natural Science:  Linking Theory and Practice; Shulman, Implications of Feminist Critiques of Science for the Teaching of Mathematics and Science; Weasel, The Cell in Relation:  An Ecofeminist Revision of Cell and Molecular Biology; Lederman, Structuring Feminist Science; Shiva, Democratizing Biology:  Reinventing Biology From a Feminist, Ecological, and Third World Perspective; Schiebinger, Creating Sustainable Science; Rose, Women's Work is Never Done

SNS, Ch. 47 "Creation is Hard Work"

Week 11

Using Tools and Seeing Technology

Teams will disassemble and reassemble hand mixers during class. 

Week 12

Team Project Report due; class presentations of team reports.

Week 13

First Draft Paper due -- in class evaluations. 

Week 14

Final Draft Paper due

Individual Paper due

© Copyright 2007 Suzanne E. Franks. Last update: 7/30/2007; 11:49:56 AM.