CAREER: Nuclear History as History of Science

SES 99-83981-凯瑟琳·L·卡森(加州大学伯克利分校)《职业生涯：作为科学史的核史》这个职业项目开展了一项综合的工作计划，题目是《作为科学史的核史》。在研究和教学中，它探索了核时代特有的技术和社会政治问题的交织。对于研究部分，卡森教授正在为核废料概念化制定一部在技术上有见地的历史。从20世纪40年代到现在，核废料问题的性质已经发生了巨大的变化：曾经被认为是一个小的技术困难，在容易获得的知识的基础上，通过适度的努力就可以解决，现在已经成为一个主要的国际研究领域，需要极其复杂的建模和实验。卡森教授的研究考察了对这一挑战本质的不断变化的概念--核废料被理解为一种什么样的科学问题--从而将技术问题带回了我们的政策和政治史。它以美国、德国以及法国或瑞士为重点，采取比较的方法，作为打开争议点的一种方式。其结果将对更广泛的具有实际利益的社区具有价值，因为过去对核废料的态度是其目前许多问题的背景。与此同时，该项目面向思考理论问题的历史学家，利用核废料管理的典范站点来研究社会政治和技术之间的联系。然后，教育部分在加州大学伯克利分校卡森教授设计的一门新的本科课程中继续研究该项目的主题。作为一门关于核时代的科学史课程，该课程汇集了来自科学、工程、人文和社会科学的学生。在他们与这一复杂时期的接触中，技术和社会政治问题交织在一起，学生们将探索在学期结束后为他们服务的历史解释模式。这门课程的题目是“核伯克利，核世界”，这表明了它的双重关注点：大学、社区和地区的地方历史，以及国内发展的全球背景。除了阅读、演讲和讨论的标准教学策略，卡森教授的课程还考虑使用网络基础设施进行信息和互动。此外，作为课堂体验的高潮，它让学生参与到亲身实践的历史研究中，通过自己的实践经验教会他们创造历史的过程。鉴于该地区无与伦比的资源，许多学生项目的当地重点将把他们的工作回报给社区，因为他们的报告将作为大学以外的门户在网站上提供。该项目的两个组成部分是相互支持的。他们在大大小小的范围内探索技术乐观主义和历史必然性：因此，核废料在教育框架中占据了一席之地，而课程的总体叙事为研究提供了背景。就学生项目而言，他们与卡森教授的研究建立了联系，建立了联系，挖掘了来源，并开辟了新的研究领域。

SES 99-83981 - Cathryn L. Carson (University of California, Berkeley)"CAREER: Nuclear History as History of Science"This CAREER project carries out an integrated program of work with the title "Nuclear history as history of science." In research and teaching it explores the interweaving of technical and sociopolitical matters characteristic of the nuclear age. For the research component Professor Carson is framing a technically informed history of the conceptualizations of nuclear waste. Nuclear waste is a problem whose perceived nature has changed dramatically from the 1940s to the present: what was once thought to be a small technical difficulty, soluble with modest effort on the basis of readily obtainable knowledge, has become a major international field of research with intensely complex demands of modeling and experimentation. Professor Carson's study examines the changing conception of the very nature of the challenge -- what sort of scientific problem nuclear waste has been understood to be -- and so brings technical matters back into our histories of policy and politics. Focusing on the U.S., Germany, and either France or Switzerland, it takes a comparative approach as a way of opening up points of controversy. The resulting account will be of value to broader communities with practical interests, since past attitudes towards nuclear waste stand in the background of many of its present problems. At the same time the project addresses itself to historians thinking about theoretical questions, using the exemplary site of nuclear waste management to investigate the interface between the sociopolitical and the technical.The education component then pursues the project's theme in a new undergraduate course that Professor Carson is devising at the University of California, Berkeley. As a history of science course on the nuclear age, the class brings together students from the sciences, engineering, humanities, and social sciences. In their encounters with this complex period, with its interweaving of technical and sociopolitical problems, the students will explore models of historical explanation that will serve them past the semester's end. The course title, "Nuclear Berkeley, Nuclear World," indicates its double focus: the local history of the university, the community, and the region, and the global context framing the developments at home. Along with standard pedagogical strategies of reading, lecture, and discussion, Professor Carson's course makes considered use of a web infrastructure for information and interaction. Moreover, as the culmination of the class experience it engages students in hands-on historical research, teaching them what goes into creating histories through the experience of practicing it themselves. The local focus of many student projects -- given the area's unparalleled resources -- will then return their work to the community, as their reports will be made available on the website as a gateway beyond the university.The two components of the project are mutually supportive. They explore technical optimism and historical inevitability at scales large and small: thus nuclear waste takes its place in the educational framework, while the course's overarching narrative provides the backdrop for the research. And the student projects, for their part, make connections back to Professor Carson's research, establishing contacts, unearthing sources, and opening up new fields to study.