EAS3237 - The Rise of Science
2015/6 Module description
| Staff | Dr Felicity Henderson - Convenor |
|---|---|
| Credit Value | 30 |
| ECTS Value | 15 |
| NQF Level | 6 |
| Pre-requisites | |
| Co-requisites | |
| Duration of Module | Term 2: 11 weeks; |
Module description
During the 17th century, Renaissance ways of understanding the natural world slowly gave way to a ‘new philosophy’ – the scientific method. But the process was not straightforward. This module will study literature that emerged from the scientific community and from its critics. What is the best way to construct knowledge? Whose authority should we trust? How should we communicate our ideas? We will explore these questions through a range of literary and scientific texts, images and artefacts from the period.
You do not need to have studied any science in order to take this module.
Module aims
In the modern world, the discourse of science is dominant – but this was not always the case. In this module you will read some of the first texts of the scientific revolution, as well as satires that mocked the new science, and the first work of science fiction in English. The module aims to explore the evolution of ideas about knowledge from the Renaissance to the early 18th century. We will see how new ideas about the natural world were communicated by scientists, and how they were incorporated into the literature of the period. We will also ask how scientists were influenced by more literary writers, and how they constructed their own image as scientists. We will link all this with the period’s increasing interest in the individual, and the rise of the novel. You will encounter some scientific ideas on this module, but you will not need to have a detailed understanding of them in order to study these texts.
The library at Exeter Cathedral has an excellent collection of early-modern scientific and medical books, and we will be using their collections in some of our workshops. These workshops will be held off-campus at the Exeter Cathedral Library.
ILO: Module-specific skills
- 1. Demonstrate knowledge of early-modern scientific writing and literary responses to it
- 2. Discuss these works in relation to contemporary debates about the construction of knowledge
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
- 3. Demonstrate an advanced ability to analyse the literature of the early-modern period and to relate its concerns and its modes of expression to its historical context
- 4. Demonstrate an advanced ability to interrelate texts and discourses specific to their own discipline with issues in the wider context of cultural and intellectual history
ILO: Personal and key skills
- 5. Through essay-writing demonstrate appropriate research and bibliographic skills, an advanced capacity to construct a coherent, logical and substantiated argument, and a capacity to write clear and correct prose
- 6. Through other writing tasks demonstrate an ability to communicate complex ideas effectively to a broad non-academic audience.
Syllabus plan
Introduction
Week 1.
Renaissance knowledge and power: Shakespeare, The Tempest
Visions of a new world
Week 2.
Utopia of the scientific state: Francis Bacon, New Atlantis
Week 3.
Astronomy in the popular imagination: Francis Godwin, The Man in the Moone
Week 4.
Microscopes and metaphors: Robert Hooke, Micrographia (extracts) and Donne, poems
Characters and caricatures: scientific self-fashioning
Week 5.
Attacks on science I: Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World
Week 6.
Science strikes back: Philosophical Transactions (extracts); Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society of London
Week 7.
Attacks on science II: Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso
Constructing knowledge
Week 8.
Refuting myth: Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica (extracts)
Week 9.
Self-observation and subjectivity: Samuel Pepys, Diary (extracts)
Week 10.
Narrative power: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Week 11.
New mythologies: William Stukeley, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life; portraits of Isaac Newton
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 33 | 267 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | 33 | Seminars |
| Guided Independent Study | 33 | Study group preparation and meetings |
| Guided Independent Study | 70 | Seminar preparation (individual) |
| Guided Independent Study | 164 | Reading, research and essay preparation |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blog post | 15 | 750 words | 1-6 | Feedback sheet with opportunity for tutorial follow-up |
| Essay | 35 | 2000 words | 1-5 | Feedback sheet with opportunity for tutorial follow-up |
| Essay | 50 | 3250 words | 1-5 | Feedback sheet with opportunity for tutorial follow-up |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blog Post | Blog Post | 1-6 | Referral/Deferral Period |
| Essay | Essay | 1-5 | Referral/Deferral Period |
| Essay | Essay | 1-5 | Referral/Deferral Period |
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Core reading:
Shakespeare, The Tempest
Francis Bacon, New Atlantis
Francis Godwin, The Man in the Moone
Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World
Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
William Stukeley, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life
(extracts from the following texts will be available via the module’s ELE site: Robert Hooke, Micrographia; Donne’s poems; Philosophical Transactions; Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society of London; Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica; Samuel Pepys, Diary)
Indicative secondary reading:
Harkness, Deborah. The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007)
Henry, John. The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002)
Hunter, Michael. Science and Society in Restoration England (Cambridge: CUP, 1981)
Jardine, Lisa. Francis Bacon, Discovery and the Art of Discourse (London, CUP, 1974)
Johns, Adrian. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago, Ill. University of Chicago Press, 1998)
Shapin, Steven, and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989)
Spiller, Elizabeth. Science, Reading and Renaissance Literature: the Art of Making Knowledge, 1580-1670 (Cambridge: CUP, 2004)
Swann, Marjorie. Curiosities and Texts: the Culture of Collecting in Early Modern England (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2001)
Module has an active ELE page?
Yes
Available as distance learning?
No
Origin date
20/01/2015
Last revision date
20/01/2015
Key words search
science, knowledge, Royal Society, experiment, satire, science fiction
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