Module HIST20K1: The Superconducting Super Collider: The Politics of Science in Twentieth-Century America

Department: History

HIST20K1: The Superconducting Super Collider: The Politics of Science in Twentieth-Century America

Prerequisites

• A pass mark in at least ONE level 1 module in History

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To contribute towards meeting the aims of Level II study in History;
• To provide students with in-depth experience finding, interpreting, contextualising, and building arguments with primary historical sources;
• To confer subject-specific knowledge of the history of science and technology in the late 20th century
• To develop students’ writing and research skills

Content

• The Superconducting Super Collider, or SSC, would have been the largest laboratory ever constructed. It was designed to test the final predictions of the standard model of particle physics—the current theory that describes the elementary structure of matter and energy—and many physicists expected that it would also provide hints at a deeper underlying theory. The multi-billion-dollar construction cost, they argued, was a small price to pay for a fuller understanding of the universe and its most fundamental laws.
• But amid budget overruns, management difficulties, and the uncertainties of the post–Cold War context, the United States Congress terminated the project in 1993. While high energy physicists mourned, other physicists cheered. Condensed matter physicists, who study complex matter at terrestrial scales, had staunchly opposed the project, arguing that such gargantuan facilities funnelled funds from scientific endeavours that had more direct relevance to technology, economy, and society—and that were not any less fundamental.
• Their disagreement was public and is just one of the many points of conflict recorded in the congressional hearings in which the merits of the SSC were debated. Examining the transcripts of these hearings allows us ask how science and politics interface, about how scientific fields compete amongst themselves for resources both concrete and abstract, and about how assessments of scientific merit were grounded in late twentieth-century America.

Learning Outcomes

• Familiarity with common schemes for categorising sources
• Understanding of late twentieth-century history of science and technology
• Understanding of government records and scientific publications as historical sources

• Ability to critically interpret primary historical sources
• Facility with theories, themes, and methods relevant to the study of twentieth-century American science
• Ability to use primary sources to make a targeted intervention in a scholarly discourse

• Independent research skills, using a wide range of search tools and historical sources
• Advanced ability to synthesise complex material from a wide range of sources
• Ability to formulate complex arguments in articulate and well-structured English, observing the conventions of academic writing, conforming to high academic standards
• Effective oral and written communication
• Facility drawing together disparate forms of historical evidence
• Ability to demonstrate professional conduct through observation of professional and academic standards, including correct editorial referencing of sources
• Personal organisational skills, including time management

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Seminars to allow students to present and critically reflect upon the acquired subject-specific knowledge, methodologies and theories, and to identify and debate a range of issues and differing opinions. The seminar is the forum in which students are given the opportunity to communicate ideas, jointly exploring themes and arguments. Seminars are structured to develop understanding and designed to maximise student participation related to prior independent preparation. Seminars give students the opportunity to develop oral communication skills, encourage critical and tolerant approaches to reasoned argument and historical discussion, build the students' ability to marshal historical evidence, and facilitate the development of the ability to summarise historical arguments, think in a rapidly changing environment and communicate in a persuasive and articulate manner, whilst recognising the value of working with others and, occasionally, towards shared goals
• Workshops are a forum for practising subject-specific key skills. They function as interactive lectures, organised around the assessments designed to advance and evaluate those skills, and are structured to improve the core competencies we expect second-year history students to develop. Workshops involve tutor-led activities in which students work together to discuss the mechanics of finding and evaluating primary sources, contextualuising primary evidence, building arguments, organising historical genres of writing, and evaluating the quality of historical argumentation
• Assessment: Summative coursework will test students’ ability to communicate ideas in writing, present clear and cogent arguments succinctly and show appropriate critical skills as relevant to the particular module.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Workshops will include exercises that contribute to summative assessments, as well as guidance on implementing tutor feedback. The summative source commentary will have a formative element for the final assignment.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University