Faculty Advisor: PhD Researcher, UC Berkeley

Program Start Time: TBD (meetings will take place for around one hour per week)

Research Practicum Introduction

Knowing the universe was not always rocket science. This program offers an interdisciplinary introduction to global knowledge of the universe. We will follow actors, institutions and networks that have constituted, configured, transformed, and utilized knowledge of the cosmos—science, philosophy, literature, and the arts—in their protean and fleshed iterations from ancient Mesopotamia to the contemporary United States.

The first half of the program surveys myriad views and practices regarding time, truth, nature, and the body as well as their epistemic entanglements in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome and early modern Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas. We then shift to critical scrutiny of processes and events that decisively transformed cosmic knowledge—the Scientific Revolution, the emergence of modern science and the Space Race.

The program concludes by reflecting on who speaks for the universe today—with particular attention to the dearth of Black, Latinx, female and queer astrophysicists in the US, discourses on climate change from the Global South and the growing popularity of Chinese science fiction. Secondary readings from arts, humanities and the social sciences are paired with primary sources—historical records, scientific documents, technological artifacts, origin stories, poetry, art and architecture, documentary films, podcasts, and science fiction—to illuminate multi-faceted dimensions of cosmic knowledge. Alongside content knowledge the program expects students from across disciplines to compose original research essays on a pre-approved topic of their choice by creatively triangulating an unconventional combination of primary sources. 

Students will also learn general and subject-specific research and academic writing methods used in universities and scholarly publications. Students will focus on individual topics and generate their own work products upon completion of the program.

Possible Topics For Final Project

• What were the earliest time-keeping practices? How did these evolve over the centuries?

• What notions of truth were embedded in literary and religious texts? How did creation stories and myths evince scientific sensibilities around truth?

• What were some conceptions of nature before the Enlightenment? How did the Enlightenment transform ideas of nature?

• What are the myriad ways we have understood the human body through history? Why was knowledge of anatomy a building block of scientific knowledge?

• How would you define technology at the outset of human civilization? How has the definition evolved over time?

• What were some protean map-making practices in the ancient world? How did maps shift and expand with the discovery of the New World and India?

• Or other topics in this subject area that you are interested in, and that your professor approves after discussing it with you.

Program Detail

• Cohort Size: 3-5 students

• Duration: 12 weeks

• Workload: Around 4-5 hours per week (including class time and homework time)

• Target Students: 9-12th grade students interested in History, STEM, Sociology, English Literature and/or Interdisciplinary Studies.