2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

Londa Schiebinger Pennsylvania State University
HSS Abstracts
Approaches to Teaching Gender in Science
I will distribute and discuss my syllabus on gender in science and also discuss
the new “Women, Gender and the History of Science Syllabus Sampler” kindly
collected and prepared by Andrea Rusnock. One point I would like to raise is
how to attract more men into gender in science classes. I think one answer is
to teach gender issues in broader history of science classes. A second question
is how to get more science students into history of science classes. Gender in
science classes draws more science students than general history of science
classes.
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Sigrid Schmalzer University of California, San Diego
Breeding a Modern China: The Making of the Dingxian Pig
“Breeding a Modern China: The Making of the Dingxian Pig, 1929-1937”
explores the Mass Education Movement’s efforts to transform pigs and pig
breeding in Dingxian, Hebei through the importation of an American breed of
pig and its hybridization with local pigs. Led by Yan Yangchu, reformers were
conscious that the wholesale importation and implementation of western
scientific methods had failed China in the past and would fail again. Their
chief concern was that the new pig should raise production levels but still
“suit local conditions.” Reformers thus constructed a notion of “local
conditions” to which modern science was required to conform. But “conditions”
and “methods” do not play equal roles in science, and reformers did not require
the “scientific” methods of pig breeding to negotiate with local methods.
Despite their attention to local conditions, the reformers thus reinforced the
notion that modern, western science was universal in nature, and that it could
and should be applied universally, replacing local knowledge and practices.
Furthermore, in discussing “local conditions,” reformers found a way of talking
about the people of Dingxian that fit their liberal, humanist agenda. This paper
examines what kind of society the reformers presented and contrasts it with
alternative ways of viewing the same “local conditions.” Finally, the paper
explores the relationship between the new methods of pig breeding and the
process of state building: the “scientific” methods compelled farmers to
participate in state-regulated breeding cooperatives and created a new arena
of state control in farmers’ everyday lives.
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