Race in the Histories of Science and Medicine: A Review Essay and a Research Agenda

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

SES 00-01402 - Evelynn M. Hammonds (MIT) -- "Race" in the Histories of Science and Medicine: A Review Essay and a Research Agenda" This grant provides summer support that will allow the Principal Investigator to complete an essay on the historiography of the concept of race in the histories of science and medicine in the United States from 1800 to the present. The essay will be in three parts. The first part will examine the historiography of race in the histories of biology and anthropology. The second part of the essay will examine the historiography of race in the history of medicine. The final section of the essay will raise questions that have not been addressed about the history of the race concept in the existing secondary literature in these fields. This essay will be similar in form to Daniel Kevles, "Genetics in the United States and Great Britain, 1890-1930: A Review With Speculations," Isis, 1980, 71 (No.258):441-455. In this essay Kevles reviewed the literature on the history of genetics in the US and Great Britain, summarized the existing scholarship, pointed out the limitations in historical interpretation and raised the important questions that needed to be addressed in future work. The essay will be submitted for publication to Isis and to the Bulletin of the History of Medicine. The editors of both these journals have expressed interest in publishing an essay on this topic.