HIST154 - Histories of Race and Science in Philadelphia

The history of race and science has its American epicenter in Philadelphia. Throughout this Academically-Based Community Service (ABCS) course, we will interrogate the past and legacy of racial science in the United States; the broad themes we broach will be met concretely in direct engagement with Penn and the Philadelphia community. As an extended case study, students will undertake independent research projects using primary source documents from local archives, tracing the global history of hundreds of human skulls in the 19th century Samuel G. Morton cranial collection at the Penn Museum, a foundational and controversial anthropological collection in the scientific study of race. These projects will be formed through an ongoing partnership with a Philadelphia high school in which Penn students will collaborate with high school students on the research and design of a public-facing website on the Morton collection and the legacy of race and science in America. In our seminar, we will read foundational texts on the study of racial difference and discuss anti-racist responses and resistance to racial science from the 19th century to the present. Throughout, we will work directly with both primary and secondary sources, critically interrogating how both science and histories of science and its impacts on society are constructed. Throughout this course, we will explore interrelated questions about Penn and Philadelphia's outsize role in the history of racial science, about decolonization and ethics in scholarly and scientific practice, about the politics of knowledge and public-facing scholarship, and about enduring legacies of racial science and racial ideologies. All students are welcome and there are no prerequisites, save for intellectual curiosity and commitment to the course. This course will be of particular interest to those interested in race, American history and the history of science, anthropology, museum studies, education, and social justice.