HS415  Scientists and Psychics: Victorian Science and the Boundaries of Belief     (3.00 cr.)

Prerequisite: HS101 and one HS300-level course. This examination of late nineteenth-century Victorian science explores both the assumptions upon which physics and psychics based their research, as well as the cultural milieu which provided such a fertile field for both sets of investigations--often performed by the same individuals. The discoveries of Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, and Dr. Anna Kingsford serve as the focus for a detailed study of the mutability of "facts" within the context of science as it developed in fin-de-siècle Britain.