History of Science and Medicine
Humanities Quadrangle, 203.432.1365
http://hshm.yale.edu
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Chair
Bill Rankin
Director of Graduate Studies
Naomi Rogers
Faculty Sakena Abedin, Elaine Ayers, Paola Bertucci, Deborah Coen, Ivano Dal Prete, Megann Licskai, Gourav Krishna Nandi, Ayah Nuriddin, Nana Quarshie, Joanna Radin, Marco Ramos, William Rankin, Carolyn Roberts, Naomi Rogers, Deborah Streahle, John Harley Warner
Affiliated Faculty Rene Almeling (Sociology), Alexi Baker (Collections Manager, HSI), Marisa Bass (History of Art) Melissa Grafe (Librarian for Medical History), Greta LaFleur (American Studies), Alka Menon (Sociology), Lisa Messeri (Anthropology), John Durham Peters (English; Film and Media Studies), Jason Schwartz (Public Health), Kalindi Vora (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)
The Graduate Program in the History of Science and Medicine is a semi-autonomous graduate track within the Department of History. The program’s students are awarded degrees in History, with a concentration in the History of Science and Medicine.
Fields of Study
All subjects and periods in the history of science and history of medicine, especially the modern era. Special fields represented include American and European science and medicine; disease, therapeutics, psychiatry, drug abuse, and public health; science and national security; science and law, science and religion, life sciences, human genetics, eugenics, biotechnology, gender, race, and science/medicine; bioethics and medical research; environmental sciences; human and social sciences; physical and earth sciences.
Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree
Courses
Students will ordinarily take fourteen courses by the end of the third year. In their first two years, all students will normally take the three core Problems seminars: Problems in the History of Medicine and Public Health (HSHM 7010 or HSHM 7030), Problems in the History of Science (HSHM 7020), and Problems in Science Studies (HSHM 7100). These courses are committed to exploring histories of medicine and science alongside the cultural, political, and social forces that shape them. Issues of race, gender, sexuality, disability, class, and religion are integrated into discussions of medical and scientific knowledge production and praxis in Western and non-Western contexts. In addition, students are expected to take the HSHM Program seminar (HSHM 7900), which counts as one half-course per term) during their third through sixth semesters, for a total of two course credits. These courses meet every other week and teach skills related to research and professional development that includes careers in and beyond academia.
Students are also required to take four additional graduate seminars with an HSHM course number. The remaining five courses can be taken in HSHM, history, or any other field of demonstrated relevance to the student’s scholarly objectives. Of the fourteen total courses, at least three must be seminars that result in an original research paper; at least two of these papers must be written in HSHM seminars. Students may ordinarily use up to two independent reading, independent research, or pedagogical seminars towards their course requirements. The use of additional independent credits requires approval.
Graduate school grading at Yale follows a qualitative rubric of Honors, High Pass, or Pass. During the first two years of study, students must achieve Honors in at least two courses in the first year and Honors in at least four courses by the end of the second year, with a High Pass average overall. At the end of each term, the director of graduate studies (DGS) will ask faculty members whether they have serious concerns about the academic progress of any first- or second-year students in the Ph.D. program. Faculty members who have such concerns will provide written feedback to the DGS at the DGS’s request. The DGS will use discretion in ensuring that feedback is provided in a clear and effective manner to any students about whom there are concerns.
Students who enter having previously completed graduate work may obtain up to three course credits toward the completion of the total course requirement, the number being contingent on the extent and nature of the previous work and its fit with intended course of study at Yale.
Languages
All students must show proficiency in two languages relevant to the student’s research interests and approved by the DGS. Over the years, our graduate students have demonstrated proficiency in a wide range of languages, including American Sign Language, Bulgarian, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin Chinese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.
Students may fulfill the requirement in a variety of ways, including demonstrated command of a native language other than English, graduation from an approved foreign university where teaching is conducted in a language other than English, passing an approved language course for credit, or passing a language test administered by the faculty or by one of Yale’s language departments. Language tests are administered by their respective departments (such as German, Italian, French, East Asian Languages and Literatures). Students should consult the DGS for additional details and options for uncommon languages.
Yale offers classes in a variety of languages, from introductory to advanced levels, as well as special summer courses for targeted reading proficiency. There are also opportunities to study languages outside of Yale’s curriculum, including funding for summer language study, and Directed Independent Language Study (DILS) for individuals who wish to study a language not offered by Yale. For more information on these programs and foreign language tutoring at Yale, please visit the Center for Language Study’s website, http://cls.yale.edu.
Students may petition to substitute a specific research skill for one of their languages. Proposals require discussion of how the skill will be used in the student’s research and a plan for positive demonstration of proficiency.
Second-Year Review
At the end of the academic year, the HSHM faculty will hold a special meeting to review each first- and second-year student in the program. The purpose of the meeting is to assess students’ academic progress. In order for second years to proceed to the third year, they must demonstrate through written work, classroom performance, and participation in departmental activities that they have the ability to: (a) speak and write clearly; (b) conduct independent research at a high level; and (c) develop coherent scholarly arguments. A faculty vote will be taken at the conclusion of the review meeting to decide whether each second-year student may continue in the program. If a majority of faculty present and voting determine that a student may not continue, the student will be informed in writing and withdrawn from the program.
Qualifying Examination
Prior to beginning work on the dissertation, all students are expected to develop a broad general knowledge of the discipline. This knowledge will be acquired through a combination of course work, regular participation in HSHM colloquia and workshops, and dedicated preparation for the qualifying oral examination.
The qualifying examination has two main goals. First, it is a preparatory step toward the dissertation. Students will master the analytical vocabulary of the discipline and engage critically with key historiographic and theoretical questions. This will prepare them to select a research topic of scholarly significance and to articulate its import effectively. Second, the qualifying examination will prepare students for teaching. Students will learn to communicate a set of historical themes and narratives confidently and fluently.
Students will normally spend the summer following their second year preparing for the oral qualifying examination, which will be taken in the third year, preferably during the first half.
The qualifying examination will normally consist of four fields, each of which will be examined by a different faculty member: two fields in the history of science and/or history of medicine; one field in an area of history outside of medicine and/or science; and one field of special interest, the content and boundaries of which will be established in consultation with the student’s adviser.
Possibilities for the field of special interest include a second field in history outside of history of science or medicine, a field with a scientific or medical focus (such as bioethics, health policy, public health, medical anthropology, or medical sociology), or a field at the intersection of science, medicine, and other subjects (such as law, national security, religion, culture, biotechnology, gender, race, literature, the environment, and so on).
The examination itself will be an oral exam, with each field examined for thirty minutes. Ahead of the exam students will also submit, for each field, a written syllabus for an undergraduate course. With approval, students may submit other written materials instead of a syllabus; examples could include a teaching statement, the text of a fifty-minute undergraduate lecture, a review essay, or an exhibit proposal. In rare cases students may also propose alternatives to the oral component, given sufficiently compelling intellectual or career factors.
In preparation for the qualifying examination, the program’s faculty work closely with students to facilitate the successful passage of the exam. A student who does fail the qualifying examination will be permitted to retake it. A student who fails a second time will be asked to withdraw from the program.
Advising
During their first term in the program, all students will be advised by the DGS. During the second term and thereafter, each student will be advised by a faculty member of the student’s choosing. The adviser will provide guidance in selecting courses and preparing for the qualifying examination. The adviser may also offer help with the development of ideas for the dissertation, but students are free to choose someone else as the dissertation supervisor when the time comes to do so. Students are encouraged to discuss their interests and program of study with other members of the faculty.
Dissertation Prospectus
Students are encouraged to begin thinking about their dissertation topics during the second year. They are required to prepare a dissertation prospectus as soon as possible following the qualifying examination and to defend the prospectus orally before being admitted to full candidacy for the doctoral degree. The prospectus colloquium is typically held in the second term of the third year, with advancement to candidacy before the start of the fourth year.
For more information, please see the program’s Guide to Prospectus and Prospectus Colloquium at https://hshm.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/prospectus_guide.pdf.
Committee Constitution Requirement
Each Ph.D. student must have a dissertation committee in order to register for the fourth year of study. Students without an approved committee and dissertation adviser will normally be withdrawn from their program. The graduate school requires a committee of three, four, or five faculty members, at least two of whom must have an appointment in the graduate school, including the principal adviser. Others may come from beyond the graduate school or from beyond Yale, depending on the student’s goals and the particulars of the project. HSHM committees will ordinarily include at least two HSHM faculty members.
Teaching
Teaching is an important part of the professional preparation of doctoral students in the History of Science and Medicine. Students are encouraged to participate in programs to develop their teaching skills, including the Certificate for College Teaching Preparation, which is a comprehensive training program designed to enhance proficiency in classroom instruction.
Typically, during the third and fourth years of study, students will work as teaching fellows, which usually means that they will lead small-group discussion sections for undergraduate courses and grade their students’ exams and papers. On occasion, however, students may work as teaching fellows in the second term of the second year, particularly if they have received course credit for previous graduate studies, or if they choose to defer the completion of their required coursework to the first semester of the third year. Students usually work as teaching fellows for courses in the History of Science and Medicine, but they may also have the opportunity to be teaching fellows in History or other departments.
At least two terms of teaching are required for doctoral students to graduate from the Program in the History of Science and Medicine; four terms are required for students on Yale-supported fellowships, although students may elect to substitute one or two of these terms with research assistantships at the Yale Center for British Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, or other sites across campus. For more information, please contact the Office of Financial Aid.
Chapter Conference and Dissertation Completion
In the fourth or fifth year, and preferably no later than the fall term of the fifth year, students are required to submit one chapter of the dissertation (not necessarily the first chapter) to the dissertation committee. The committee will then meet as a group with the student to discuss the chapter and the student’s progress on the dissertation more generally. This conference is meant to be an extension of the conversation begun in the prospectus colloquium, with the aim of providing feedback on the student’s research, argument, and style at this early stage of the dissertation writing process. No less than one month before students plan to submit their dissertations, a relatively polished full draft of the dissertation should be discussed with the student by the dissertation committee in a dissertation defense of one to two hours. This will give the students additional advice and counsel on completing the dissertation or on turning it into a book, as appropriate. Students are required to submit the draft to their committee in sufficient time for the committee to be able to read it. This defense is designed to give students advice on the overall arguments and the final shape of the dissertation or book and to leave time for adjustments coming out of the discussion.
Please also see GSAS Policies and Regulations.
M.D.-Ph.D. and J.D./Ph.D. Joint-Degree Programs
Students may pursue a doctorate in History of Science and Medicine jointly with a degree in Medicine or Law. Standard graduate financial support is provided for the doctoral phase of work toward such a joint degree. Candidates for the joint degree in Law must apply for admission to both the Law School and the graduate school. Information about the joint-degree program with Medicine can be obtained from the website of the Yale School of Medicine (http://medicine.yale.edu/mdphd) and from the website of the Section of the History of Medicine (http://medicine.yale.edu/histmed).
Master’s Degrees
M.Phil. and M.A. (en route to the Ph.D.) Master’s degrees are normally awarded to Ph.D. students as part of their advancement to candidacy.
Terminal M.A. For the terminal master’s degree students must pass seven term courses, four of which must be in HSHM. Coursework will normally include at least two “Problems” graduate seminars and two additional graduate seminars in the History of Science and Medicine. The remaining courses are to be chosen in consultation with the DGS or a faculty adviser. Honors grades are required in two courses, with a High Pass average overall. Financial aid is not available for this M.A. program.
More information is available on the program’s website, http://hshm.yale.edu.
Courses
HSHM 5250a or b / HIST 5250a or b, Field Studies Staff
This course does not count toward the coursework requirements for the Ph.D. or M.A. ½ Course cr
HTBA
HSHM 7010a / HIST 8931a, Problems in the History of Medicine and Public Health John Warner
An examination of the variety of approaches to the social and cultural history of medicine and public health. Readings are drawn from recent literature in the field, sampling writings on health care, illness experiences, and medical cultures in Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the United States from antiquity through the twenty-first century. Topics include the role of gender, class, ethnicity, race, religion, and region in the experience of sickness and healing; the intersection of lay and professional understandings of the body; and the role of the marketplace in shaping cultural authority, professional identities, and patient expectations.
T 1:30pm-3:20pm
HSHM 7020b / HIST 8911b, Problems in the History of Science Ayah Nuriddin
Surveys current methodologies through key theoretical and critical works. Students encounter major twentieth-century methodological moments that have left lasting imprints on the field: positivism and anti-positivism, the sociology of knowledge, actor-network theory, and historical epistemology, as well as newer approaches focusing on space, infrastructure, translation, and exchange. We also consider central conceptual problems for the field, such as the demarcation of science from pseudoscience; the definition of modernity and the narrative of the Scientific Revolution; vernacular science, the colonial archive, and non-textual sources.
T 1:30pm-3:20pm
HSHM 7100a / HIST 8910a, Problems in Science Studies Marco Ramos
Exploration of the methods and debates in the social studies of science, technology, and medicine. This course covers the history of the field and its current intellectual, social, and political positioning. It provides critical tools—including feminist, postcolonial, and new materialist perspectives—to address the relationships among science, technology, medicine, and society.
M 9:25am-11:15am
HSHM 7130a / HIST 8912a, Geography and History Bill Rankin
A research seminar focused on methodological questions of geography and geographic analysis in historical scholarship. We consider approaches ranging from the Annales School of the early twentieth century to contemporary research in environmental history, history of science, urban history, and more. We also explore interdisciplinary work in social theory, historical geography, and anthropology and grapple with the promise (and drawbacks) of GIS. Students may write their research papers on any time period or geographic region, and no previous experience with geography or GIS is necessary. Open to undergraduates with permission of the instructor.
Th 9:25am-11:15am
HSHM 7160b / EMST 8160b / HIST 8942b, Early Modern Science and Medicine Paola Bertucci
The course focuses on recent works in the history of science and medicine in the early modern world. We discuss how interdisciplinary approaches—including economic and urban history, sociology and anthropology of science, gender studies, art and colonial history—have challenged the classic historiographical category of “the Scientific Revolution.” We also discuss the avenues for research that new approaches to early modern science and medicine have opened up, placing special emphasis on the circulation of knowledge, practices of collecting, and visual and material culture.
Th 1:30pm-3:20pm
HSHM 7360b / HIST 8932b / WGSS 7730b, Health Politics, Body Politics Naomi Rogers
A reading seminar on struggles to control, pathologize, and normalize human bodies, with a particular focus on science, medicine, and the state, both in North America and in a broader global health context. Topics include disease, race, and politics; repression and regulation of birth control; the politics of adoption; domestic and global population control; feminist health movements; and the pathologizing and identity politics of disabled people.
W 3:30pm-5:20pm
HSHM 7520a / HIST 8916a, Historicizing the Atmosphere Deborah Coen
Recent scholarship brings the atmosphere from the background to the foreground of history. Inspired in part by present-day problems of climate change, air pollution, airborne viruses, and police brutality, humanities scholars are teasing out the historical specificity of experiences of the atmosphere. A focus on the atmosphere allows historians to make connections between local, embodied practices and planetary processes. We explore ways to periodize the atmosphere’s history, from its invention in the seventeenth century to its weaponization in the twentieth. While some scholars in the humanities are working in partnership with the natural sciences, others present their work as complements to or critiques of science. We consider how scientific and cultural analyses of the atmosphere can build on each other as well as the tensions between them. Authors include Leo Spitzer, Peter Sloterdijk, Shigehisa Kuriyama, Christina Sharpe, Timothy Choi, and Kimberly Bain. Students have the option of a creative final project or a historical research paper.
T 1:30pm-3:20pm
HSHM 7610b / AFAM 7152b / AMST 8867b / HIST 8902b, Researching and Writing Medicine, Health, and Empire Carolyn Roberts
This small graduate seminar is for students currently engaged in research and writing projects that touch on issues related to health, medicine, science, or the body in the context of slavery, colonialism, or neocolonialism. Students will explore their relationship to the craft of writing, their identity as “authors,” the politics of the archive, the methodological and evidentiary challenges in their work, and tools that will level up their research organization and management skills. The course provides graduate students with a balance of support and independence as they further their research and writing projects. Graduate students in any discipline are warmly invited to participate in a compassion-based research community that prioritizes values of deep listening, presence, and care
F 9:25am-11:15am
HSHM 7691a and HSHM 7692b / ANTH 8897a and ANTH 8898b / HIST 5804a and HIST 5805b / HSAR 6841a and HSAR 6842b, Topics in the Environmental Humanities Paul Sabin
This is the required workshop for the Graduate Certificate in Environmental Humanities. The workshop meets six times per term to explore concepts, methods, and pedagogy in the environmental humanities, and to share student and faculty research. Each student pursuing the Graduate Certificate in Environmental Humanities must complete both a fall term and a spring term of the workshop, but the two terms of student participation need not be consecutive. The fall term each year emphasizes key concepts and major intellectual currents. The spring term each year emphasizes pedagogy, methods, and public practice. Specific topics vary each year. Students who have previously enrolled in the course may audit the course in a subsequent year. This course does not count toward the coursework requirement in history. Open only to students pursuing the Graduate Certificate in Environmental Humanities. ½ Course cr per term
T 11:30am-1:20pm
HSHM 7710b / AFAM 7119b / HIST 8900b, Researching and Writing Histories of Health, Medicine, and Science Carolyn Roberts
This small graduate seminar is for students currently researching and writing histories of health, science, and medicine. Students learn about slow scholarship, the politics of the archive, and research organization and management and explore the craft of writing. Preference is given to graduate students in history, the history of science and medicine, and African American studies.
F 1:30pm-3:20pm
HSHM 7900a or b, HSHM Program Seminar Naomi Rogers
The HSHM Program Seminar helps students navigate the requirements of the Ph.D. program in HSHM, including but not limited to the prospectus, teaching, conference presentations, the "hidden curriculum," research and publication strategies, career planning, and other topics. Along with discussion of skills specific to HSHM, the course provides opportunities for students to practice these skills in a workshop format. Some sessions will include guest speakers on topics such as non-academic careers and the publishing world. The seminar is a requirement for students in their second and third years of the Ph.D. in HSHM and is an elective for students in other years. ½ Course cr
HTBA
HSHM 7920a / AMST 6619a / ER&M 6520 / WGSS 6620a, Enduring Conditions: Chronic Illness, Disability, Care, and Access Kalindi Vora
This interdisciplinary course brings together scholarship on access and care that bridges concerns in the fields of disability studies and humanistic approaches to chronic illness. Scholarly texts are drawn from the fields of critical race and ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, anthropology and sociology of medicine, history, and feminist science and technology studies (fSTS). Seminar participants also engage with the arts and media as critical sites for understanding culture work bringing together knowledge in disability and chronic illness spaces. To embrace community-based research and knowledge sharing, the course features regular guest lectures from grassroots disability justice organizers and culture workers. The course is offered in a hybrid format. To consider what disability studies and work on chronic illness can build together, we explore the work of Moya Bailey, Aimi Hamraie, Jina B. Kim, Sami Schalk, Akemi Nishida, Ryan Cartwright, and Arthur Kleinman, among others. Permission of instructor is required. Undergraduates may also enroll with permission of instructor.
W 3:30pm-5:20pm
HSHM 9200a or b, Independent Reading Staff
By arrangement with faculty.
HTBA
HSHM 9300a or b, Independent Research Staff
By arrangement with faculty.
HTBA
HSHM 9970a or b / HIST 9997a or b, Pedagogy Seminar Staff
Faculty members instruct their Teaching Fellows on the pedagogical methods for teaching specific subject matter. 0 Course cr
HTBA