Larry Owens

Faculty picture Professor

Office: Herter 629
Telephone: (413) 545-6775
Fax: (413) 545-6137
E-mail: lowens@history.umass.edu

Degree: Ph.D., history of science, Princeton (1987); Ph.D., biochemistry, Rutgers (1972).
Field(s) of interest: Science and technology

Graduate Courses Offered:
Cold War, Hot Science: The Making of Scientific Life and Culture in the Military-Industrial Complex (Not Online)
Comparative Scientific Traditions
Historiography of Science
History of Science (Not Online)
Theaters of Knowledge: Critical Approach (Syllabus Only)

Research Interests and Professional Activities:
My research and writing range over the last century and a variety of American topics from the history of engineering, the laboratory as a workplace, mathematical machinery and computers as cultural artifacts, and, most generally, the relationships between science, technology, and culture. As a teacher, I'm happiest in my introductory survey of science and technology in the western world and in upper-division and graduate seminars on comparative scientific traditions and on science and culture in the cold war. Recently, I’ve begun work on a book tentatively titled "The Rise and Fall of the Rocket State: Ballistic Culture in Cold War America."

Sample Writings:

"Sam Prescott and the Sanitary Vision at MIT: The Search for the Perfect Cup of Coffee," Technology & Culture 45(4) (2004): 795-807.

"The Cat and the Bullet: A Ballistic Fable for the Modern World," The Massachusetts Review 45(1) (2004): 178-190. (Nominated for the 2004 Pushcart Prize)

"Science ‘Fiction’ and the Mobilization of Youth in the Cold War," submitted to Science Fiction Studies.

"Silo Memories: A Titan II Missile Site ‘Under Construction,’ a talk presented at the History of Science Society annual meeting in Cambridge, MA, November 2004.

"Science in the United States," in Science in the Twentieth Century (1997), ed. John Krige and Dominique Pestre.

Where are We Going, Phil Morse? Changing Agendas and the Rhetoric of Obviousness in the Transformation of Computing at MIT, 1939-1957," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18(4) (1996): 34-42. (Winner of the IEEE award for the best paper published in 1996 on the history of computing.)

"Pure and Sound Government: Laboratories, Playing Fields, and Gymnasia in the 19th Century Search for Order," Isis 76 (1985): 182-194. (Winner of the Schuman Prize of the History of Science Society)

Photo: Brian Ogilvie