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Author: Patrick L. Schmidt Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1538168308 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 265
Book Description
In Harvard’s Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science, Patrick L. Schmidt tells the little-known story of how some of the most renowned social scientists of the twentieth century struggled to elevate their emerging disciplines of cultural anthropology, sociology, and social and clinical psychology. Scorned and marginalized in their respective departments in the 1930s for pursuing the controversial theories of Freud and Jung, they persuaded Harvard to establish a new department, promising to create an interdisciplinary science that would surpass in importance Harvard’s “big three” disciplines of economics, government, and history. Although the Department of Social Relations failed to achieve this audacious goal, it nonetheless attracted an outstanding faculty, produced important scholarly work, and trained many notable graduates. At times, it was a wild ride. Some faculty became notorious for their questionable research: Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (reborn as Ram Dass) gave the psychedelic drug psilocybin to students, while Henry Murray traumatized undergraduate Theodore Kaczynski (later the Unabomber) in a three-year-long experiment. Central to the story is the obsessive quest of legendary sociologist Talcott Parsons for a single theory unifying the social sciences– the white whale to his Captain Ahab. All in all, Schmidt’s lively narrative is an instructive tale of academic infighting, hubris, and scandal.
Author: Patrick L. Schmidt Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1538168308 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 265
Book Description
In Harvard’s Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science, Patrick L. Schmidt tells the little-known story of how some of the most renowned social scientists of the twentieth century struggled to elevate their emerging disciplines of cultural anthropology, sociology, and social and clinical psychology. Scorned and marginalized in their respective departments in the 1930s for pursuing the controversial theories of Freud and Jung, they persuaded Harvard to establish a new department, promising to create an interdisciplinary science that would surpass in importance Harvard’s “big three” disciplines of economics, government, and history. Although the Department of Social Relations failed to achieve this audacious goal, it nonetheless attracted an outstanding faculty, produced important scholarly work, and trained many notable graduates. At times, it was a wild ride. Some faculty became notorious for their questionable research: Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (reborn as Ram Dass) gave the psychedelic drug psilocybin to students, while Henry Murray traumatized undergraduate Theodore Kaczynski (later the Unabomber) in a three-year-long experiment. Central to the story is the obsessive quest of legendary sociologist Talcott Parsons for a single theory unifying the social sciences– the white whale to his Captain Ahab. All in all, Schmidt’s lively narrative is an instructive tale of academic infighting, hubris, and scandal.
Author: John Levi Martin Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231559739 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 1187
Book Description
We have many histories of social theory—what different authors attempted to do as they responded to previous theories. But we know precious little about how they did this in structural terms—what scaffolding they adopted and adapted to make their claims. Yet today’s social thoughts largely employ structures passed down from previous generations, structures that were developed to solve problems that are no longer ours. In The True, the Good, and the Beautiful, John Levi Martin explores these structures, the resulting tensions, and their broader significance for sociological thought. By examining how thinkers mapped interpersonal to intrapersonal structures, he traces the development of the underlying architectonics of theory, focusing on one that was inherited from eighteenth-century philosophy and brought into social science in the nineteenth century. He shows that the structural tensions inherent in these theories paralleled those being worked out in practical terms by constitutional theorists as thinkers attempted to return to their most fundamental understandings of the nature of the human, the social, and the political to recraft their societies. A magisterial new interpretation of the foundations of sociological thought, The True, the Good, and the Beautiful is as ambitious a work of social theory as we have seen in generations.
Author: Rebecca M. Jordan-Young Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674242653 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
An Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal Winner A Progressive Book of the Year A TechCrunch Favorite Read of the Year “Deeply researched and thoughtful.” —Nature “An extended exercise in myth busting.” —Outside “A critique of both popular and scientific understandings of the hormone, and how they have been used to explain, or even defend, inequalities of power.” —The Observer Testosterone is a familiar villain, a ready culprit for everything from stock market crashes to the overrepresentation of men in prisons. But your testosterone level doesn’t actually predict your appetite for risk, sex drive, or athletic prowess. It isn’t the biological essence of manliness—in fact, it isn’t even a male sex hormone. So what is it, and how did we come to endow it with such superhuman powers? T’s story begins when scientists first went looking for the chemical essence of masculinity. Over time, it provided a handy rationale for countless behaviors—from the boorish to the enviable. Testosterone focuses on what T does in six domains: reproduction, aggression, risk-taking, power, sports, and parenting, addressing heated debates like whether high-testosterone athletes have a natural advantage as well as disagreements over what it means to be a man or woman. “This subtle, important book forces rethinking not just about one particular hormone but about the way the scientific process is embedded in social context.” —Robert M. Sapolsky, author of Behave “A beautifully written and important book. The authors present strong and persuasive arguments that demythologize and defetishize T as a molecule containing quasi-magical properties, or as exclusively related to masculinity and males.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “Provides fruitful ground for understanding what it means to be human, not as isolated physical bodies but as dynamic social beings.” —Science
Author: Clark A. Elliott Publisher: Lehigh University Press ISBN: 9780934223126 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 398
Book Description
"This collection of original historical essays examines aspects of the relationship between science and the nation's oldest academic institution. This is history as viewed from the varying perspectives of a group of scholars for whom science at Harvard University is a significant component of their ongoing research. Thus, the essays are of specialist interest, while collectively the volume is a case study of science in an institutional setting. In conducting their research, the authors have used a wealth of primary sources from the Harvard Archives and other repositories." "The volume opens with a thematic introduction by Margaret Rossiter reflecting the picture of Harvard science drawn in the several papers in the volume, while suggesting ways in which a study of Harvard relates to and illuminates the history of science in America." "The subsequent papers follow a generally chronological sequence, beginning with Sara Schechner Genuth's study of attitudes toward comets in relation to early Harvard University programs and functions. Mary Ann James examines the beginnings of applied science at Harvard, and Bruce Sinclair continues that theme with a comparative study of MIT and Harvard." "Toby Appel's paper on zoologist Jeffries Wyman identifies the special part that personal character plays in institutional history. Curtis Hinsley concentrates on facilities and shows how the Peabody Museum gave rise to teaching in anthropology. David Livingstone's biographical treatment of Nathaniel S. Shaler reveals a number of intellectual strands running through the University in the late nineteenth century, and John Parascandola's paper on L. J. Henderson likewise deals with a figure of wide influence and many interests, ranging from biochemistry to sociology. The latter topic leads to Lawrence Nichols's account of the rise of sociology at Harvard. A view of the internal tensions within psychology are seen in Rodney Triplet's study of Henry A. Murray." "I. Bernard Cohen examines the relations among Howard Aiken, IBM, and Harvard in the development of the Mark I computer, while Peggy Kidwell studies the Observatory community during World War II and its response to national defense and a developing federal support system." "Finally, Clark Elliott considers the history of Harvard science as a field for study through a review of published literature and archival sources and makes suggestions for further investigation."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: J. K. Rowling Publisher: Little, Brown ISBN: 0316369144 Category : Self-Help Languages : en Pages : 81
Book Description
J.K. Rowling, one of the world's most inspiring writers, shares her wisdom and advice. In 2008, J.K. Rowling delivered a deeply affecting commencement speech at Harvard University. Now published for the first time in book form, VERY GOOD LIVES presents J.K. Rowling's words of wisdom for anyone at a turning point in life. How can we embrace failure? And how can we use our imagination to better both ourselves and others? Drawing from stories of her own post-graduate years, the world famous author addresses some of life's most important questions with acuity and emotional force.
Author: Annette Lykknes Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3034802862 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
In this volume, a distinguished set of international scholars examine the nature of collaboration between life partners in the sciences, with particular attention to the ways in which personal and professional dynamics can foster or inhibit scientific practice. Breaking from traditional gender analyses which focus on divisions of labor and the assignment of credit, the studies scrutinize collaboration as a variable process between partners living in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who were married and divorced, heterosexual and homosexual, aristocratic and working-class and politically right and left. The contributors analyze cases shaped by their particular geographical locations, ranging from retreat settings like the English countryside and Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to university laboratories and urban centers in Berlin, Stockholm, Geneva and London. The volume demonstrates how the terms and meanings of collaboration, variably shaped by disciplinary imperatives, cultural mores, and the agency of the collaborators themselves, illuminate critical intellectual and institutional developments in the modern sciences.
Author: Rachel Riedner Publisher: Lexington Books ISBN: 9780739111048 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 150
Book Description
Drawing upon a variety of contemporary sites and social movements, this book explores pedagogical relationships that can be the basis of political and social organizing. The authors approach pedagogy as a space of learning_not simply teaching_whose purpose is to develop an understanding of cultural networks and in so doing develop critical literacies.
Author: Patrick L. Schmidt
Author: Patrick L. Schmidt
Author: John Levi Martin
Author: Rebecca M. Jordan-Young
Author: Clark A. Elliott
Author: J. K. Rowling
Author: Bruno Latour
Author: Annette Lykknes
Author: 
Author: 
Author: Rachel Riedner