Thursday, December 29, 2011
A recent article in The Economist on Luther prompted me to think about ephemeral astrological literature in early modern Europe. Here I suggest that we need to take this literature more seriously than we typically have.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 12/29 at 04:58 PM
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
In this final review of my “Biography of a Map” project I try to indicate where the project worked well, at times really well, and where there remains some room for improvement. In the end, I would say this experiment in pedagogy was a success.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 12/27 at 02:29 PM
(2) Comments •
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Reflecting on recent concerns about how science is taught (concerns that, we learn, seem to be perennial), I spent some time thinking about a role for the history of science in teaching science. This post surveys some proposed changes to that science curriculum and collects my inchoate thoughts on a role for the history of science in this re-imagined science curriculum.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 11/23 at 09:00 AM
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Prompted by a two very different reviews of Westman’s The Copernican Question, I spent a morning thinking about the form and purpose of a book review. This post tries to hammer those thoughts into something useful.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 11/13 at 12:56 PM
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Having looked at students’ initial efforts to write cartographic biographies, I am rethinking how I can accomplish the goals I initially set forth. Here I think about some possible ways forward.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 10/18 at 10:02 PM
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Wednesday, October 12, 2011
A review of some student work on the “Biography of a Map” assignment. Students consistently looked beyond the map itself, placing it in the context in order to recover the meaning it had for the original maker or the person who commissioned it. This post looks at efforts to understand three maps William Penn had made of his new colony.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 10/12 at 01:26 AM
Friday, October 07, 2011
My “Biography of a Map” assignment was intended to get students to think more broadly about historical artifacts and the nature of knowledge claims. I used maps as an opportunity to highlight some of the problems of approaching the past with our own assumptions and questions. Instead, it is important to recover the map maker’s questions and motivations. Maps are synecdochic for natural knowledge in general.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 10/07 at 10:49 PM
Friday, April 22, 2011
In which we discuss the aesthetics of the history of science, medicine, and technology--and insist that “concretize” is not a word.
Posted by Nathaniel Comfort on 04/22 at 10:32 AM
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Wednesday, March 02, 2011
The PACHS special collections search tool is an excellent way to find history of science material throughout the region. What becomes clear almost immediately is how much material there is in the area.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 03/02 at 11:01 PM
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Friday, December 10, 2010
A video on the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek astronomical calculator, is a beautiful piece of science communication.
Posted by Nathaniel Comfort on 12/10 at 08:12 AM