HISTORY AND STORIES OF LIFE
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Full programme
- Bibliography
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
None in particular, though knowledge of the history of biology in XX century subjects which are part of the "History and stories of contemporary sciences and technologies" course (1st semester) is particularly useful.
Only a final examination will take place. Some specific questions will be posed to the student in order to ascertain the acquisition of the above described knowledge and abilities. The final grade will be determined by the degree of acquisition of such expected knowledge and skills, with the following criteria which take properly into account of the interdisciplinary perspective characterizing the Degree Course: knowledge of the subjects dealt with (40%); synthetic and analytic skills (20%); ability to formulate autonomously a properly grounded critical judgment (20%); expression and language command (20%).
Peculiar of biology (or “life science(s)”), in particular of the so-called “evolutionary biology”, is its statute of “historical science” (which is shared with geology and cosmology). Life, in fact, is history or, better, histories: history of the sequence of living beings starting form about 4 billions of years ago (“biological evolution” or “phylogenesis”), history from birth to extinction, when applicable, of each species, history of reproduction and development of each new individual (“ontogenesis” or, as it has been called for a long time from 17th to the end of 19th century, “evolution”), history of the appearance of life on Earth, that is of the “origins”. The figure of Charles Darwin, as the proponent of the theory of evolution by means of natural selection in the second half of 19th century, plays, and still continues to do so, a key role, which can however be understood only when placed in its historical context, from the end of XVIII century to the present.
On the basis of these premises, the course’s aims are the following:
• to critically analyze the history of the ideas on the “history of life” that have been proposed from the end of 17th century to date, in a bi-directional journey between present and past: what the French historian Marc Bloch has called “judiciously regressive method”.
• To discuss if and how this typically historically approach can be extended from events and ideas to life itself, on which (in the three above sketched meanings: phylogenesis, ontogenesis, origins) many stories (narratives) have on the other hand been written across the centuries, lately those based, though not exclusively, on Darwinian ideas.
• To relate what exposed in the previous points to the social and cultural contemporary debates.
One should then be able to possibly draw a parallel between the “historian’s craft” (Marc Bloch) and the work of the biologist, thus possibly favoring a dialogue between the scientific disciplines and the humanities within and outside the Degree course in History and Stories of the Contemporary World.
Among the expected learning outcomes, the following are relevant:
• The knowledge of the meaning and of the historical development of the ideas on the evolution of living beings and of the related main biological concepts.
• The ability to transfer and integrate concepts, tools, methodologies between biology and history.
• The ability to critically interpret current debates in which biology, evolutionary biology in particular, played, plays or is expected to play in the future a significant role.
The course is articulated in two parts, interconnected also from a temporal point of view: the first part will deal with the history of the ideas on evolution in relation to the history of ideas on development and on heredity, insisting in particular on the transition between XVIII and XIX century; the second part will progressively deal, whenever possible in an historiographical perspective, topics in history/es of life fueling contemporary debates. The main theme of historicity of biology will go through all three parts, in a continuing dialogue with the ideas exposed by the historian Marc Bloch in his “The Historian’s craft”, a required reading for the course.
A) First part (44 h + 13 h laboratory)
- The comparative method in life sciences and in history.
- The chain of being and the unity of nature in the 18th century.
- The problem of generation and preformism.
- The idea of epigenesis and the birth of new forms by means of hybridization.
- Linnaeus, Buffon and Blumenbach: species, man, degeneration and races (with readings from original texts – 2 hours of laboratory)
- Cuvier and the birth of paleontology: fossils as historical documents.
- Lamarck and species transformation with readings from original texts – 1 hour of laboratory)
- The debate around evolutionary ideas in the first half of XIX century in France and England (with readings from original texts – 2 hours of laboratory)
- Darwin and his theory of evolution by means of natural selection.
- The problem of variation according to Darwin.
- The difficulties of evolutionary theory and Darwin’s answers to critics.
- Darwin’s anthropological works
(The lectures on Darwin will be integrated with with readings from original texts – 2 hours of laboratory)
- Reception of Darwinism in Europe and Russia between the second half of XIX and the beginning of XX century.
- Kammerer, Lysenko and “Neo-Lamarckian” ideas in Stalin’s Soviet Union
- From the “New Synthesis” in the ‘40s of XX century to the “extended synthesis” in XXI century
B) Second part (12 h)
- The different forms of biological organization and their consequences on the living organism: viruses, unicellular organisms, plants, animals.
- Reproduction and sexuality. Biological immortality?
- Why the term “evolution” should be replaced by “histories of life”?
----
To get through the final exam, the integral study of the below indicated texts, as well as of the material which will be discussed during the course (and made available to students through the dedicated e-learning web platform) is mandatory:
P.Bowler – Evolution. The history of an idea – University of California Press
P.Appleman (ed.) - Darwin. A Norton Critical Edition - W.W. Norton, 2001 (Only parts III and IV)
E.Mayr - This is Biology. The Science of the Living World - Harvard University Press, 1997
M.Bloch – The Historian’s craft – Vintage Books
For each lecture, a specific detailed bibliography, referring to the course texts and to the supplementary material made available, will be published on the e-learning site.
Course formative goals will be reached by means of lectures (for a total of 56 hours) and laboratory activities (16 hours). Lectures will progressively examine course contents, ideally in an interactive way with students, by means of discussions and debates in the classroom as well. Laboratory activities consists of reading an analysis of primary sources (13 hours) and in an excursion (3 hours of visit) to the Civic Museum of Natural History in Milano. After the end of the course, revision sessions before each exam session are planned as well.
Students are welcome to come over anytime ( or to connect via videoconference call), by appointment to be scheduled via e-mail, to the lecturer's office in the Departmental (DiSTA) building (via J.H.Dunant 3, Varese