SPRING 2027 | Three Credit Seminar Course
Science, History, and the Making of the Modern World
Ideas War Culture Computation
COURSE PLAN | WORKING DRAFT
This page will be updated when final details are available.
A three-credit interdisciplinary seminar for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, from any discipline, will trace how science became a force that reshaped culture and modern life. Likewise, we show how culture can shape science. In short, we cover the period from 1880 to the present and examine the world in three broad acts:
I. The World Becomes Modern, ~1900–1933
Planck, Einstein, relativity, quantum theory, modernism, HG Wells, Proust, Bergson, Mahler, Schoenberg, the Great War.
II. Science, War and Power, ~1933–1960
Nazism and migration, WWII, Turing and computation, Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer, Big Science, Cold War.
III. Science Remakes the World, ~1960-present
Science - The Endless Frontier and the National Science Foundation Act, space exploration and the race to the Moon, computing, Star Trek and the Warp Drive, molecular biology, black holes and cosmology, gravitational waves and LIGO, networks and the Internet, AI and the next revolution. Where is it taking us?
While this is partly a history of science class it also explores broader historical context, social movements, arts and humanities throughout. The course begins with the state of the world at the end of the nineteenth century and follows the revolutions that came next. Space, time, matter, energy, perception, and artistic form all changed dramatically around 1900. The period also brought fascism, global war, nuclear weapons, and Cold War institutions, followed by spaceflight, molecular biology, computing, networks, gravitational-wave astronomy, and artificial intelligence. Scientific ideas appear alongside the people, their stories, institutions, political choices, literature, art, music, and films that gave them historical meaning. Einstein is a recurring figure, but not the sole subject. Computation will be another major theme throughout. The course will conclude with a look at how science and technology impact our world and economy, and finally how AI is taking us into yet another revolution.
No scientific background is required. The course will be equally accessible to science students as it will be to humanities students. But everyone will be challenged to think! The course will consist of a series of lectures, films, and other materials that we hope will inspire students will gain a broader understanding of our current world.
Assignments will require students to synthesize what they have learned and demonstrate an understanding of the big picture. There will be considerable flexibility in topics the assignments can cover, driven by student background and interest.
CENTRAL QUESTION How did science move from transforming ideas about nature around 1900 to reorganizing war, power, culture, and everyday life, what kind of world has it made, and where is it heading?
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
· Explain major developments in science (in particular, relativity and quantum theory) and technology (in particular, computing and AI) from the late nineteenth century to the present and place them in their historical contexts.
· Analyze how science, technology, war, politics, institutions, and culture have shaped one another since 1880.
· Interpret primary scientific texts and historical sources alongside literature, music, art, and film.
· Compare scientific, historical, and humanistic forms of evidence, and distinguish documented influence from analogy or later cultural association.
· Discuss the major ideas behind computation, its development, use in science, and major driver of our future.
· Evaluate the ethical, social, and economic consequences of scientific and technological choices, including questions of power, access, and responsibility.
· Develop and communicate evidence-based interpretations in discussion, writing, and recorded or oral presentations.
The course will meet in-person once each week for lectures and discussion. Required preparation between meetings will include short readings, recorded lectures, commercial films and documentaries, music, and other materials. Guest lecturers may join selected sessions. Drs. Blackler and Seidel will also hold at least one joint office hour each week.
Class participation and preparation will be central to the course.
Adam Blackler is an associate professor of history at the University of Wyoming and a historian of modern Germany and southern Africa. His work spans the Weimar Republic, fascism, the Holocaust and genocide, colonialism, and human rights; he will lead the course’s German, European, political, social, and moral history.
Edward Seidel is a professor of physics and astronomy and adjunct professor in the School of Computing at the University of Wyoming and served as UW’s 28th president from 2020 to 2026. A relativistic astrophysicist and computational scientist who led numerical-relativity research at the Albert Einstein Institute and later directed the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, he will connect Einstein’s physics with computing, gravitational waves, and firsthand institutional history.