B4957 - Sciences, Bodies, Environments (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

This course provides the tools to analyze the historical relationships among natural landscapes, technical infrastructures, and human and animal bodies, and the forms of scientific knowledge mediating these relationships. The course intends to put together global and local perspectives, as well as theoretical reflections on the categories used today to describe such relationships and the analysis of specific historical cases. Specific topics include: the history of the modification of landscapes between science, politics and climate change; the history of the peasant and scientific knowledge as they relate to food; the history of the opposition between urban and rural landscapes as it relates to human health; the history of the relationships between tourism and the sciences; the gendered history of the representations of nature; the development of archival research skills.

Course contents

EMBODIED KNOWLEDGES: REFLECTIONS ON SOME CASE HISTORIES

This course aims at beginning a number of reflections related to some case histories regarding the relationships between scientific and non-scientific knowledge in the longue durée, from the early modern period to the contemporary world. Through the idea of embodied knowledges we will study some kinds of knowledge which are not separable from a direct, bodily experience of nature, and the exchanges, exploitations, refusal, and appropriation relationships between scientific and "experiential" knowledge.

In the first place, the course will offer a view on analytical approaches concerning historical narratives related to conjectural knowledge, and gendered and situated knowledge; in the second place, we will analyze the relationships between human and non-human bodies (the case of early modern surgery); finally, we will analyze the relations between technologies transforming landscapes and "popular" knowledge (the case of the Vajont disaster). 

Classes will begin February 10, 2025 with the following hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 11am-1pm, aula IV (Via Zamboni 38).

Readings/Bibliography

Part 1

• Carlo Ginzburg, "Spie. Radici di un paradigma indiziario" in Id., Miti Emblemi Spie (Einaudi, 2000 oppure Adelphi, 2023) [pp. 158-210 o pp. 157-201]

• Paolo Savoia, Superfici. Corpi, pratiche e modelli cognitivi nella chirurgia di età moderna (Officina Libraria, in uscita gennaio 2025) [capp. 1, 5, 6]

• Donna Haraway, "Saperi situati. La questione della scienza nel femminismo e il privilegio di una prospettiva parziale" in Id., Manifesto Cyborg (Feltrinelli, 2018) [pp. 103-134]

• Ursula K. Le Guin, "La teoria letteraria del sacchetto della spesa", in Id., I sogni si spiegano da soli. Immaginazione, utopia, femminismo (Sur, 2022) [pp. 140-149]

• Anna L. Tsing, “L’arte di osservare” e “Seguire le tracce”, in Id., Il fungo alla fine del mondo. La possibilità di vivere nelle rovine del capitalismo (Keller, 2021) [pp. 43-55 e pp. 206-217]

• Marco Armiero, La tragedia del Vajont. Ecologia politica di un disastro (Einaudi, 2023)

 

Part 2

2.1. Circulation of knowledge in the early modern period

• Edgar Zilsel, The social origins of modern science (Kluwer, 2000)

• Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (The University of Chicago Press, 2004)

• Piero Camporesi, La miniera del mondo. Artieri inventori impostori (Il Saggiatore, 1990)

• Katharine Park, Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection (Zone Books, 2006)

• Harriet Ritvo, The Platypus and the Mermaid, And Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination (MIT Press, 1998)

• Ludwick Fleck, Genesi e sviluppo di un fatto scientifico (Il mulino, 1983)

• Richard H. Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism 1600-1860 (Cambridge University Press, 1995)

• Rebecca Earle, The Body of the Conquistador. Food, Race and the Colonial Experience in Spanish America, 1492–1700 (Cambridge University Press, 2012)

• Pablo F. Gomez, The Experiential Caribbean. Creating Knowledge and Healing in the Early Modern Atlantic (The University of North carolina Press, 2017)

• Francesca Antonelli, Antonella Romano, Paolo Savoia (ed.), Gendered Touch: Men, Women, and Knowledge-making in early Modern Europe (Brill, 2022).

 

2.2. Gender, nature, environment

• Sandra Harding, Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research (University of Chicago Press, 2015)

• Carolyn Merchant, La morte della natura: donne, ecologia e rivoluzione scientifica (Bibliografica, 2022)

• Sandra Eder, How the clinic made gender: The medical history of a transformative idea (Chicago, 2022)

• Valerie Plumwood, Feminism and the mastery of nature (Routledge, 1993)

• Donna Haraway, Chthulucene. Sopravvivere su un pianeta infetto (Nero, 2019)

• Stefania Barca, Forces of Reproduction (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

• Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard UP, 2011)

• Bruno Latour, La sfida di Gaia. Il nuovo regime climatico (Meltemi, 2020)

• Liliana Doganova, Discounting the Future: The Ascendancy of a Political Technology (Zone Books, 2003)

• Cristophe Bonneuil e Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, La terra, la storia e noi. L’evento antropocene (Treccani, 2016)

• Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva, Ecofeminism (Bloomsbury, 1993, 2013)

Teaching methods

Ten Lectures.

Texts and primary sources that will be discussed in class will be added to the bibliography for those interested in them. To encourage class participation, each lecture will be followed by a session of questions and comments. I will provide in advance the calendar with all the topics and readings for each lecture: it is highly recommended to read the texts in advance in order to better participate to class discussions.

The second part of the course (five meetings) will be devoted to students' presentations, individually or in group. The dates and contents of the presentations will be decided during the first classes.

Assessment methods

Oral exam (on part 1) and class presentation.

In the second part of the course students will choose one text to present in class with the help of slides, either individually or in group following common threads. Slides will be circulated with the whole group 24 hours in advance of the presentation in order to make discussions more precise and lively. This presentation is part of the evaluation.

As an alternative to class presentation, students attending classes can choose to write a review of one of the texts of part 2 (max. 1500 words), to be delivered 24 hours before the oral exam.

In any case, all the slots for class presentations must be filled.

Students not attending classes must prepare all the texts from part 1 and one of the texts from part 2.

Top marks (28-30) will be given to students who demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the material discussed in class and contained in the texts, critical and analytical skills, and the ability to express ideas and concepts clearly and cogently. Those students who will demonstrate a good knowledge of the material but tend to repeat it mechanically rather than demonstrate full understanding and the ability to build connections and present an argument will be rewarded with average to high marks (23-27). Students who demonstrate superficial knowledge, gaps in preparation, poor critical and analytical skills and difficulties of expression will receive average to low marks (18-22). Severe lacunae in one or more areas listed above could lead to the student repeating the exam.

Students with disabilities and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD). Students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders have the right to special accommodations according to their condition, following an assessment by the Service for Students with Disabilities and SLD. Please do not contact the teacher but get in touch with the Service directly to schedule an appointment. It will be the responsibility of the Service to determine the appropriate adaptations. For more information, visit the page:
https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

Office hours

See the website of Paolo Savoia