Date

Meeting

8/25/15

9/1/15

9/8/15

Module

Title

Readings

1 Big Questions

Introduction

What is Consciousness?

Christian, David. The Case for Big History.

Journal of World History 2, no. 2 (October 1,
1991): 22338.
Dehaene, Stanislas. Consciousness and the Brain:
Stadler, Max. Neurohistory Is Bunk?: The Not-So- Quiz 1
Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts. New York: Deep History of the Postclassical Mind. Isis 105,
Viking, 2014. 1-88
no. 1 (March 1, 2014): 13344.

Environmental Deep Time

David Christian and William McNeill, Big History, 1-138

Human Deep Time

9/22/15

5 Historical Contexts

Approaches to Human Nature

9/29/15

Mind, Body, and Knowledge

10/6/15

The Geological and Darwinian Revolutions Selections: Lyell, Cuvier, Lamarcke, Darwin

10/13/15

Race and Racism

"What is Race?" Online Module

10/27/15

9 Contemporary Debates

How Does a Brain Work?

Stanislas Dehaene, Consciousness and the Brain, 89-160

How Did the Brain Evolve?

Stanislas Dehaene, Consciousness and the Brain, 161-199

10

Undergraduate
Assignment

Selections: Plato, Mencius, Augustine

Selections: Descartes

Graduate Assignment

Quiz 1

Cooter, Roger. Neural Veils and the Will to

Historical Critique: Why Historians of Science
Need to Take the Neuro-Turn Seriously. Isis 105,
no. 1 (March 1, 2014): 14554.
Casper, Stephen T. History and Neuroscience: An Timeline of the Universe Timeline of the Universe
Integrative Legacy. Isis 105, no. 1 (March 1,
Assignment
Assignment
2014): 12332.

McNeill, William H. Passing Strange: The

Convergence of Evolutionary Science with
Scientific History. History and Theory 40, no. 1
(2001): 115.
David Christian and William McNeill, Big History, 139-206
Brooke, John L., and Clark Spencer Larsen. The Quiz 2
Nurture of Nature: Genetics, Epigenetics, and
Environment in Human Biohistory. The American
Historical Review 119, no. 5 (December 1, 2014):
15001513.
Stenmark, Mikael. Theories of Human Nature: Key Issues.
Online
Philosophy Compass 7, no. 8 (2012): 54358.
Comment/Analysis of
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.ulib.uits.iu.edu/doi/10.
Primary Texts

9/15/15

11/3/15

Additional Readings for Graduate Students

Selections: Locke, Hume, Kant

Online
Comment/Analysis of
Primary Texts
Online
Comment/Analysis of
Primary Texts

Fuentes, Agustn, Jonathan Marks, Tim Ingold,

Robert Sussman, Patrick V. Kirch, Elizabeth M.
Brumfiel, Rayna Rapp, Faye Ginsburg, Laura
Nader, and Conrad P. Kottak. On Nature and the
Human. American Anthropologist 112, no. 4
(2010): 51221.
Smail, Daniel Lord. Neurohistory in Action:
Reading Worksheet
Hoarding and the Human Past. Isis 105, no. 1
(2014): 11022.
Fuller, Steve. Neuroscience, Neurohistory, and Reading Worksheet
the History of Science: A Tale of Two Brain
Images. Isis 105, no. 1 (March 1, 2014): 100109.

Quiz 2

Online
Comment/Analysis of
Primary Texts

PowerPoint
Presentation for "Locke,
Hume, and Kant"
Online
Comment/Analysis of
Primary Texts
PowerPoint
Presentation for "On
Nature and the Human"

Reading Worksheet

Reading Worksheet

11/10/15

11

Cognition and Things

L. Malafouris and C. Renfrew, The Cognitive Life of Things: Scheidel, Walter. Evolutionary Psychology and
Archaeology, Material Engagement and the Extended Mind, the Historian. The American Historical Review
The Cognitive Life of Things: Recasting the Boundaries of the 119, no. 5 (December 1, 2014): 156375.
Mind. Cambridge: McDonald Institute (2010): 112
doi:10.1093/ahr/119.5.1563.

In Class Group
Presentations

In Class Group
Presentations

Quiz 3
Debates over Human
Nature
Visualization/Paper
Rough Draft

Debates over Human

Nature
Visualization/Paper
Rough Draft

Reading Worksheet

Reading Worksheet

Debates over Human

Nature
Visualization/Paper

Debates over Human

Nature
Visualization/Paper

Group 1:
L. Malafouris, Metaplasticity and the human becoming:
principles of neuroarchaeology, Journal of Anthropological
Sciences 88 (2010): 55-56
Malafouris, The brainartefact interface (BAI); L.
Malafouris, Beads for a plastic mind: the Blind Mans
Stick(BMS) hypothesis and the active nature of material
culture, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18, no. 3 (2008):
401414
Steven Mithen and Lawrence Parsons, The Brain as a
Cultural Artefact, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18, no.
3 (2008): 415-422
Group 2:
Nicole Boivin, Material Cultures, Material Minds: The Impact
of Things on Human Thought, Society, and Evolution
(Cambridge University Press, 2010), 181-224

11/17/15
11/24/15

12
13

The Meaning of Human Existence

Gene-Culture Coevolution

Edwin Hutchins, The role of cultural practices in the

emergence of modern human intelligence, Philosophical
Transactions
f the
Royal Soociety
B: BEiological
E.O. Wilson, Tohe
Meaning
f Human
xistence Sciences 363,
Russell, Edmund. Coevolutionary History. The American
Historical Review 119, no. 5 (December 1, 2014): 151428.

Harper, Kyle. The Sentimental Family: A

Biohistorical Perspective. The American
Historical Review 119, no. 5 (December 1, 2014):
154762.
Roth, Randolph. Emotions, Facultative
Adaptation, and the History of Homicide. The
American Historical Review 119, no. 5 (December
1, 2014): 152946.

12/1/15
12/8/15

14 The Big Picture

15 Conclusions

What Makes Us Human?

Is There a Posthuman? (Online)

Dunbar, Gamble, and Gowlett, Thinking Big

Selections: Haraway, Hayles, Kurzweil, Latour
Video: E.O. Wilson and Katherine Hayles Discuss Human
Nature

12/15/15

Final

Final Project