Dr. Neil Jumonville
Florida State University
HIS-5932-02
Spring 2000

READING LIST

Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods (New York: Basic Books, 1997). ISBN:0674854292

Michael Ruse, Mystery of Mysteries (Cambridge: Harvard, 1999) ISBN:067446706x

Robert Sussman, The Biological Basis of Human Behavior, second edition (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1999). ISBN:0137997353

Robert Wright, The Moral Animal (New York: Norton, 1995). ISBN:0679407731

Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve (New York: Free Press, 1994) ISBN:0684824299

* All of the material below preceded by an asterisk will be photocopied and provided to the students.

INTENTIONS. This two-hour tutorial course is on the subject I am currently researching for my next book, so the students will benefit by exploring the subject with me while I am very enthusiastic about the material. I will benefit, of course, by having students with whom I can discuss my ideas and consquently who will help me shape the book--for which they will be acknowledged.

REQUIREMENTS: For the first seven weeks of the semester we will meet for about 1 hour a week, at a regular time we set mutually, to discuss the reading. After that date there will be no more class meetings. Instead each student will work writing a final research paper.

PAPER: This essay will be 15 pages long and may be on any aspect of the course material. Preferably it will address some aspect of how our changing scientific culture has influenced our conception of human nature. The essay can be turned in as early as you like, but no later than the last week of class.

GRADES: Class discussion will count 60%. The paper will count 40%.

OFFICE HOURS: Friday 11am until 12 noon in Bellamy 420.

WEEK 1: THE EARLY YEARS, 1870-1930
* Jacques Barzun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner. Pages 7-12, 30-32, 56-59, 169-71.
Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods. Chapters 2, 3, and 8.
Michael Ruse, Mystery of Mysteries (Cambridge: Harvard, 1999), chapter 12.

WEEK 2: THE SECOND DARWINIAN REVOLUTION, 1940-1970
Michael Ruse, Mystery of Mysteries, chapters 1, 5, 6.
* Donald Fleming, "Emigre Physicists and the Biological Revolution," in Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds. The Intellectual Migration (Cambridge: Harvard, 1969).

WEEK 3: SOCIOBIOLOGY, 1975-1995
Michael Ruse, Mystery of Mysteries, chapter 9.
* Edward O. Wilson, "Man: From Sociobiology to Sociology," chapter 27 in Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge: Harvard, 1975).
* Christopher Bullock, "Mental Matters," Boston Book Review, October 1999, 14-16.

WEEK 4: THE REACTION AGAINST SOCIOBIOLOGY, 1975-1995
Michael Ruse, Mystery of Mysteries, chapters 7-8.
Robert Sussman, The Biological Basis of Human Behavior, second edition (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1999), chap 14-15.

WEEK 5: EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: MALES, FEMALES, AND SEX, 1990s. Robert Wright, The Moral Animal (New York: Norton, 1995), Introduction and chaps 2-4, 7, 12-13.
Robert Sussman, The Biological Basis of Human Behavior, chaps 50-52.

WEEK 6: GENETICS AND RACE, 1990S
Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve (New York: Free Press, 1994), chaps 1, 5-6, 13-16, 19, 21-22.
Robert Sussman, The Biological Basis of Human Behavior, chap 31.

WEEK 7: GENETICS AND RACE: THE DEBATE, 1990S
Robert Sussman, The Biological Basis of Human Behavior, chaps 26-39.

WEEK 8-15: RESEARCH AND WRITING Spend the rest of the semester researching and writing your semester essay. The essay can be turned in as early as you like, but no later than the last week of class. This essay will be 15 pages long and may be on any aspect of the course material. Preferably it will address some aspect of how our changing scientific culture has influenced our conception of human nature.