STS 4871

Science, Poetry, and the Politics of Enlightenment

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2016-2017.

If you want to learn geology, engineering, psychology, nutrition, religion, economics, and how to write an epic poem, you go scurrying to widespread corners of the university. Yet in the English Enlightenment, artists and savants laid the groundwork for all these fields in close collaboration, through social networks updated by mail-coach and moonlight. This seminar on literature and science in an age of political and technological revolution focuses on the "Lunar Society," a polymathic club whose projects ranged from the steam engine and evolutionary theory to the abolition of slavery and the artistic turn known as "Romanticism." Our class puts the now familiar division between sciences and humanities to the test by reviving their "lunatic" arts of collaboration. Non-majors welcome.

When Offered Fall.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (LA-AS)

View Enrollment Information