CathrynCarson

Contact

Office: 3221 Dwinelle
Hours: On ASMD, e-mail for appointment
Phone: 510-642-2701
Fax: 510-643-5323

OHST: 543 Stephens Hall
Phone: 510-642-4581
Fax: 510-643-5321

Email: clcarson@berkeley.edu

Education

A.B., 1990, University of Chicago, history and philosophy of science;
also completed requirements for A.B., physics, and S.B., mathematics
A.M., 1993, Harvard University, physics
Ph.D., 1995, Harvard University, history of science

Fields of Interest

Primary fields
History of physics: conceptual, cultural, social, political
History of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and many-body physics
Relations between science and philosophy and between scientists and philosophers
History of science in Germany and the U.S.
Nuclear history

Secondary fields
History of technology
Modern German history
Intellectual history (European, U.S.)

Research Projects

Engineering nuclear waste: Constructing knowledge and uncertainty in two regulatory regimes
Nuclear Berkeley, nuclear world
Shaping evolutionary biology in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Course Offerings

2009-10
No courses offered

Some previous courses
Scientific revolutions (History 24 Sect 3) -- freshman seminar
Science and society since the Scientific Revolution (History 30B)
Nuclear Berkeley, nuclear world (History 100)
Science in the U.S. (History 138)
Modern physics (History 181B)
Science under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao (History 103) -- undergraduate seminar
Introduction to history of science II (History 275S) -- graduate seminar
Reading seminar: American science (History 280) -- graduate seminar
Intellectuals, institutions, and the modern university (History 285) -- graduate seminar
Modernity and science (History 280/285) -- graduate seminar -- see also the resource list
Historical colloquium (History 290) -- graduate lecture series

Links

Office for History of Science and Technology, UC Berkeley
Science, Technology, and Society Center, UC Berkeley
Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley
UC Center for Studies in Higher Education
American Institute of Physics history site
GoNERI-UCBNE PAGES

For history of science links see also:
OHST link collection
Most recent course link collection
Resources for History 101S projects

Mailing Addresses

Department of History
3229 Dwinelle Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-2550

Office for History of Science and Technology
543 Stephens Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-2350

Selected Publications

Carson, Cathryn. Heisenberg in the Atomic Age: Science and the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Carson, Cathryn, and David A. Hollinger, eds. Reappraising Oppenheimer: Centennial Studies and Reflections. Berkeley
Papers in History of Science, vol. 21. Berkeley: Office for History of Science and Technology, University of
California, Berkeley, 2005.

Carson, Cathryn. “Science policy as Ordnungspolitik: Heisenberg as social and political theorist in the scientific-technical age.” In Who is making science? Scientists as makers of technical-scientific structures and administrators of science policy, ed. Albert Presas i Puig, MPI Preprint 361, 35-44. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2008.

Carson, Cathryn. “The revolution in science.” In A companion to Europe, 1900-1945, ed. Gordon Martel, 19-34. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.

Carson, Cathryn. “Heisenberg als Wissenschaftsorganisator.” In Werner Heisenberg 1901-1976: Beiträge, Berichte, Briefe — Festschrift zu seinem 100. Geburtstag, ed. Christian Kleint, Helmut Rechenberg, and Gerald Wiemers, 214-222. Stuttgart: S. Hirzel, 2005.

Carson, Cathryn. “Reflections on Copenhagen.” In Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen in debate: Historical essays and documents on the 1941 meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, ed. Matthias Dörries, 7-17. Berkeley: Office for History of Science and Technology, 2005.

Soo, Mary, and Cathryn Carson. “Managing the research university: Clark Kerr and the University of California.” Minerva 42 (2004): 215-236.

Carson, Cathryn. “Objectivity and the scientist: Heisenberg rethinks.” Science in context 16 (2003): 243-269.

Carson, Cathryn. “Bildung als Konsumgut: Physik in der westdeutschen Nachkriegskultur.” In Physik im Nachkriegsdeutschland, ed. Dieter Hoffmann, 73-85. Frankfurt: Harri Deutsch, 2003.

Carson, Cathryn. “Nuclear energy development in postwar West Germany: Struggles over cooperation in the Federal Republic’s first reactor station.” History and technology 18 (2002): 233-270.

Carson, Cathryn, and Michael Gubser. “Science advising and science policy in postwar West Germany: The example of the Deutscher Forschungsrat.” Minerva 40 (2002): 147-179.

Carson, Cathryn. “Heisenberg and the framework of science policy.” Fortschritte der Physik 50 (2002): 432-436.

Carson, Cathryn. “Old programs, new politics? Nuclear reactor studies after 1945 in the Max-Planck-Institut für Physik.” In Geschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus: Bestandaufnahme und Perspektiven der Forschung, ed. Doris Kaufmann, 726-749. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2000.

Carson, Cathryn. “New models for science in politics: Heisenberg in West Germany.” Historical studies in the physical and biological sciences 30, no. 1 (1999): 115-171.

Carson, Cathryn. “The peculiar notion of exchange forces — I: Origins in quantum mechanics, 1926-1928.” Studies in history and philosophy of modern physics 27 (1996): 23-45. “II: From nuclear forces to QED, 1929-1950.” Studies in history and philosophy of modern physics 27 (1996): 99-131.

Carson, Cathryn. “Who wants a postmodern physics?” Science in context 8 (1995): 635-655.

Carson, Cathryn. “The origins of the quantum theory.” Beam line (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) 30:2 (2000): 6-19.