Courses

In this course, we will examine how international migration law functions as a technology of classification.

(History 40 is 3 units; History 140 is 5 units.) The earliest developments in science, the prehistoric roots of technology, the scientific revolution, and global voyaging. Theories of human origins and the oldest known tools and symbols. Achievements of the Mayans, Aztecs, and native N. Americans. Science and medicine in ancient Greece, Egypt, China, Africa, and India. Science in medieval and Renaissance Europe and the Islamic world including changing cosmologies and natural histories.

(History 40 is 3 units; History 140 is 5 units.) The earliest developments in science, the prehistoric roots of technology, the scientific revolution, and global voyaging. Theories of human origins and the oldest known tools and symbols. Achievements of the Mayans, Aztecs, and native N. Americans. Science and medicine in ancient Greece, Egypt, China, Africa, and India. Science in medieval and Renaissance Europe and the Islamic world including changing cosmologies and natural histories.

(History 40 is 3 units; History 140 is 5 units.) The earliest developments in science, the prehistoric roots of technology, the scientific revolution, and global voyaging. Theories of human origins and the oldest known tools and symbols. Achievements of the Mayans, Aztecs, and native N. Americans. Science and medicine in ancient Greece, Egypt, China, Africa, and India. Science in medieval and Renaissance Europe and the Islamic world including changing cosmologies and natural histories.

(Same as History 140A. 40A is 3 units; 140A is 5 units.) The modern sciences trace their origins to the 16th and 17th centuries, when natural knowledge took on dramatically new shapes at the hands of people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton.

(Same as History 140A. 40A is 3 units; 140A is 5 units.) The modern sciences trace their origins to the 16th and 17th centuries, when natural knowledge took on dramatically new shapes at the hands of people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton.

(Same as History 140A. 40A is 3 units; 140A is 5 units.) The modern sciences trace their origins to the 16th and 17th centuries, when natural knowledge took on dramatically new shapes at the hands of people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton.

(Same as History 140A. 40A is 3 units; 140A is 5 units.) The modern sciences trace their origins to the 16th and 17th centuries, when natural knowledge took on dramatically new shapes at the hands of people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton.

(Same as History 140A. 40A is 3 units; 140A is 5 units.) The modern sciences trace their origins to the 16th and 17th centuries, when natural knowledge took on dramatically new shapes at the hands of people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton.

What is a mind? Who has one? How can you know? This course investigates how psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, statisticians, test-makers, medical practitioners, linguists, economists, and others wrestled with these questions from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries all across the globe. Through analyses of treatises, letters, newspapers, tests, illustrations, diagrams, instruments, and videos, we follow how theorists of the mind, thinking, rationality, madness, and more were attuned to one another and to the societal developments around them.

What is the relation between magic and science? Is religion compatible with the scientific method? Are there patterns in the stars? What is a metaphor? This course will read key moments in Greek and Islamic science and philosophy and investigate the philosophy of language, mathematical diagrams, manuscripts, the madrasa, free will, predestination, and semantic logic. We will read selections from Ibn Taymiya, Ibn Haytham, Omar Khayyam, Baha al-Din al-Amili, and others.

Science is phenomenally successful at predicting and explaining the world we live in including our own biology. Without the technological advances brought about by science, our lives would be radically different: no electricity, no cars, no smart phones, no plastics, no arthroscopic surgery, no antibiotics, no GPS, and on and on. Science tells us what the fundamental structure of reality is like: space and time, the soup of fundamental particles occupying it and composing us, and the fundamental forces that govern their behavior.

Poop. Knock-off face cream. Lysol. What do these things tell us about Chinese modernity? The history of Chinese modernity has often been told as a story of Westernization of technology and everyday life. "Traditional" Chinese life was "modernized" as the market flooded with Western technological objects; sewers enabled hygienic living, electricity lengthened working hours, railways and cars shortened walks. Between 1911 and 1949, a kind of Chinese "modernity" started to emerge through the consumption of these "modern" things. But is there more?

What is the relation between magic and science? Is religion compatible with the scientific method? Are there patterns in the stars? What is a metaphor? This course will read key moments in Greek and Islamic science and philosophy and investigate the philosophy of language, mathematical diagrams, manuscripts, the madrasa, free will, predestination, and semantic logic. We will read selections from Ibn Taymiya, Ibn Haytham, Omar Khayyam, Baha al-Din al-Amili, and others.

What is the relation between magic and science? Is religion compatible with the scientific method? Are there patterns in the stars? What is a metaphor? This course will read key moments in Greek and Islamic science and philosophy and investigate the philosophy of language, mathematical diagrams, manuscripts, the madrasa, free will, predestination, and semantic logic. We will read selections from Ibn Taymiya, Ibn Haytham, Omar Khayyam, Baha al-Din al-Amili, and others.

Contemporary medical practice traces its origins to the creation of scientific medicine by Greek doctors such as Hippocrates and Galen. Is this something of which modern medicine can be proud? The scientific achievements and ethical limitations of ancient medicine when scientific medicine was no more than another form of alternative medicine. Scientific medicine competed in a marketplace of ideas where the boundaries between scientific and social aspects of medicine were difficult to draw.

(Graduate students register for 225.) The founding work of Kant's critical philosophy emphasizing his contributions to metaphysics and epistemology. His attempts to limit metaphysics to the objects of experience. Prerequisite: course dealing with systematic issues in metaphysics or epistemology, or with the history of modern philosophy.

(Graduate students enroll in 227.) A study of Kant's ethical thought, focusing on The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Metaphysics of Morals. Prerequisite: having taken or taking during the same quarter Kant's First Critique (Phil 125/225). Designed for undergraduate department majors and graduate students.

(History 140A is 5 units; History 40A is 3 units.) The modern sciences trace their origins to the 16th and 17th centuries, when natural knowledge took on dramatically new shapes at the hands of people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton.

(History 140A is 5 units; History 40A is 3 units.) The modern sciences trace their origins to the 16th and 17th centuries, when natural knowledge took on dramatically new shapes at the hands of people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton.

(History 140A is 5 units; History 40A is 3 units.) The modern sciences trace their origins to the 16th and 17th centuries, when natural knowledge took on dramatically new shapes at the hands of people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton.

(History 140A is 5 units; History 40A is 3 units.) The modern sciences trace their origins to the 16th and 17th centuries, when natural knowledge took on dramatically new shapes at the hands of people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton.

(History 140A is 5 units; History 40A is 3 units.) The modern sciences trace their origins to the 16th and 17th centuries, when natural knowledge took on dramatically new shapes at the hands of people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton.

I am the resident historian at the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford. I invite you to join me in this course in an experiment and an adventure. First, the adventure. This course provides an introduction to modern American history by diving deep into the past of the very place in which it is taught.

Graduate students register for 265. The topic for 25-26 is Philosophical Issues in Quantum Mechanics.

Graduate students register for 265. The topic for 25-26 is Philosophical Issues in Quantum Mechanics.

In this course we learn to read Medieval Greek manuscripts, concentrating on the most exciting of them all: the Archimedes Palimpsest. We begin by learning the Greek mathematical language, through a brief reading of Euclid. Following that, we learn how to read Euclid from manuscript and, following that, we proceed to read the Archimedes palimpsest itself. Course requires one year of Greek.

May be repeated for credit.

May be repeated for credit.

The history of science has often been at the crux of key debates in the larger field of history, including debates over objectivity and bias, relativism and the problem of "present-ism." This course explores key questions, methods and debates in the history of science and examines how historians of science have addressed these organizing problems of the historical discipline. This course forms part of the "Doing History" series: rigorous undergraduate colloquia that introduce the practice of history within a particular field or thematic area.

What does it mean to be human if thinking and reasoning can be done by a machine? The advent and proliferation of generative AI tools raises a host of profound and unsettling questions. While some herald the AI revolution and its promise to liberate us from mental drudgery, others prophecy doom and oppression. While the technology might be new, the anxiety and ambivalence are not.

Have you ever wanted to curate a museum exhibition, or explore alternative ways of studying history, beyond the term paper or article? In this hands-on class, we will research and design a real museum exhibition, to be staged at the Silicon Valley Archives inside Green Library. Students will learn archival research methods, design and build exhibition cases and panels, the theory and practice of museum curation. Students will create individual projected, centered around the core theme of the class: the global history of information technology and Silicon Valley.

(Graduate students register for 225.) The founding work of Kant's critical philosophy emphasizing his contributions to metaphysics and epistemology. His attempts to limit metaphysics to the objects of experience. Prerequisite: course dealing with systematic issues in metaphysics or epistemology, or with the history of modern philosophy.

(Graduate students enroll in 227.) A study of Kant's ethical thought, focusing on The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Metaphysics of Morals. Prerequisite: having taken or taking during the same quarter Kant's First Critique (Phil 125/225). Designed for undergraduate department majors and graduate students.

Leonardo da Vinci is emblematic of creativity and innovation. His art is iconic, his inventions legendary. His understanding of nature, the human body, and machines made him a scientist and engineer as well as an artist. His fascination with drawing buildings made him an architect, at least on paper. This class explores the historical Leonardo, considering his interests and accomplishments as a product of the society of Renaissance Italy. Why did this world produce a Leonardo? Special attention will be given to interdisciplinary connections between religion, art, science, and technology.

This course examines the history of evolutionary biology from its emergence around the middle of the eighteenth century. We will consider the continual engagement of evolutionary theories of life with a larger, transforming context: philosophical, political, social, economic, institutional, aesthetic, artistic, literary. Our goal will be to achieve a historically rich and nuanced understanding of how evolutionary thinking about life has developed to its current form.

Explores the global circulation of plants, peoples, disease, medicines, technologies, and knowledge. Considers primarily Africans, Amerindians, and Europeans in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World and focuses on their exchanges in the Caribbean, in particular within the French and British empires. We also take examples from other knowledge traditions, where relevant. Readings treat science and medicine in relation to voyaging, the natural history of plants, environmental exchange, racism, and slavery in colonial contexts.

Cigarettes are the world's leading cause of death--but how did we come into this world, where 6 trillion cigarettes are smoked every year? Here we explore the political, cultural, and technological origins of the cigarette and cigarette epidemic, using the tobacco industry's 80 million pages of secret documents. Topics include the history of cigarette advertising and cigarette design, the role of the tobacco industry in fomenting climate change denial, and questions raised by the testimony of experts in court.

Graduate students register for 265. The topic for 25-26 is Philosophical Issues in Quantum Mechanics.

Study of the literature of any special topic. Preparation, presentation of reports. If taken under the supervision of a faculty member outside the department, approval of the Physics chair required. Prerequisites: 25 units of college physics, consent of instructor.

Study of the literature of any special topic. Preparation, presentation of reports. If taken under the supervision of a faculty member outside the department, approval of the Physics chair required. Prerequisites: 25 units of college physics, consent of instructor.

Study of the literature of any special topic. Preparation, presentation of reports. If taken under the supervision of a faculty member outside the department, approval of the Physics chair required. Prerequisites: 25 units of college physics, consent of instructor.

Study of the literature of any special topic. Preparation, presentation of reports. If taken under the supervision of a faculty member outside the department, approval of the Physics chair required. Prerequisites: 25 units of college physics, consent of instructor.

Study of the literature of any special topic. Preparation, presentation of reports. If taken under the supervision of a faculty member outside the department, approval of the Physics chair required. Prerequisites: 25 units of college physics, consent of instructor.

Study of the literature of any special topic. Preparation, presentation of reports. If taken under the supervision of a faculty member outside the department, approval of the Physics chair required. Prerequisites: 25 units of college physics, consent of instructor.

Study of the literature of any special topic. Preparation, presentation of reports. If taken under the supervision of a faculty member outside the department, approval of the Physics chair required. Prerequisites: 25 units of college physics, consent of instructor.

Study of the literature of any special topic. Preparation, presentation of reports. If taken under the supervision of a faculty member outside the department, approval of the Physics chair required. Prerequisites: 25 units of college physics, consent of instructor.

Study of the literature of any special topic. Preparation, presentation of reports. If taken under the supervision of a faculty member outside the department, approval of the Physics chair required. Prerequisites: 25 units of college physics, consent of instructor.

May be repeated for credit.

For first-year History and Classics Ph.D. students. This course explores ideas and debates that have animated historical discourse and shaped historiographical practice over the past half-century or so. The works we will be discussing raise fundamental questions about how historians imagine the past as they try to write about it, how they constitute it as a domain of study, how they can claim to know it, and how (and why) they argue about it.

What does it mean to be human if thinking and reasoning can be done by a machine? The advent and proliferation of generative AI tools raises a host of profound and unsettling questions. While some herald the AI revolution and its promise to liberate us from mental drudgery, others prophecy doom and oppression. While the technology might be new, the anxiety and ambivalence are not.

Have you ever wanted to curate a museum exhibition, or explore alternative ways of studying history, beyond the term paper or article? In this hands-on class, we will research and design a real museum exhibition, to be staged at the Silicon Valley Archives inside Green Library. Students will learn archival research methods, design and build exhibition cases and panels, the theory and practice of museum curation. Students will create individual projected, centered around the core theme of the class: the global history of information technology and Silicon Valley.

Examines the development of scientific philosophy from Kant, through the Naturphilosophie of Schelling and Hegel, to the neo-Kantian scientific tradition initiated by Hermann von Helmholtz and the neo-Kantian history and philosophy of science of Ernst Cassirer and Thomas Kuhn. Proposes a post-Kuhnian approach to the history and philosophy of science in light of these developments. Prerequisite: Phil 225 (Kant's First Critique) or equivalent. 2 unit option is only for Philosophy PhD students beyond the second year.

This course examines the history of evolutionary biology from its emergence around the middle of the eighteenth century. We will consider the continual engagement of evolutionary theories of life with a larger, transforming context: philosophical, political, social, economic, institutional, aesthetic, artistic, literary. Our goal will be to achieve a historically rich and nuanced understanding of how evolutionary thinking about life has developed to its current form.

Explores the global circulation of plants, peoples, disease, medicines, technologies, and knowledge. Considers primarily Africans, Amerindians, and Europeans in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World and focuses on their exchanges in the Caribbean, in particular within the French and British empires. We also take examples from other knowledge traditions, where relevant. Readings treat science and medicine in relation to voyaging, the natural history of plants, environmental exchange, racism, and slavery in colonial contexts.

2 unit option only for Philosophy PhD students beyond the second year.

Second half of Graduate Research Seminar sequence. Prerequisite: HISTORY 440A.