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Stephen Weldon

OU Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, Department of History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, The University of Oklahoma wordmark
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Stephen P. Weldon

Professor

Photographic portrait of Stephen Weldon
  • B.A., Science, Technology, and Society, Cornell University, 1985
  • M.A., History of Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1990 
  • Ph.D., History of Science and History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1997 

I am currently the chair of the department. My primary historical interests lie in the ways that science and society have intersected in the modern era, especially with regard to religion and irreligion. My extensive study of the history of religious, scientific, and secular humanism in America has forced me to think about the way that secular intellectuals have embraced science in ways that engage directly with religion and religious experience. My book, The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism (Johns Hopkins Press, 2020) is about this project.

In addition to the modern survey course, I teach classes about the intersection of science, politics, religion, and society. My classes ask students to explore especially resonant moments in history that show how important science is in all aspects of the modern world.

I also edit the Isis Bibliography of the History of Science, the definitive bibliographical resource for our discipline, which goes back to 1913. In 2015, I established an online open access service called IsisCB Explore that allows anyone to search this database. This project was the result of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant.

Finally, I study the transformation of scholarship in what is being called the digital humanities. My work on the Isis Bibliography has helped me to discover, as a practitioner, how new technologies are transforming scholarship, enabled by the ease of worldwide communication, massive data retrieval tools, and unprecedented computing power.

I live in Norman, Oklahoma. In addition to my academic work, I also manage a website (philipwprugh.com) that features the work of my grandfather, an illustrator and painter, who lived in Xenia, Ohio.

Contact me

Stephen P. Weldon
Department of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The University of Oklahoma
601 Elm, Room 625
Norman, OK 73019
USA

Office Tel: 1-405-325-2213

Email: spweldon@ou.edu

Publications

The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism: Science, Human Nature, and the Reconstruction of Religion in the Twentieth Century. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.

Isis Current Bibliography vol. 93 (2002) – vol. 112 (2021)

CB Explore: An open access discovery service for the history of science, built on 50 years of data in the Isis Bibliography of the History of Science.


“Historians and Their Data,” for the conference publication of CESIMA ANNO XX: Crossing Oceans: Exchange of Products, Instruments, Procedures and Ideas in the History of Chemistry and Related Sciences, São Paolo, Brazil, August 27, 2014, edited by Ana M. Alfonso-Goldfarb, Marcia Ferraz (in press).

“"Monkey Business,” Essay review of Trying Biology: The Scopes Trial, Textbooks, and the Antievolution Movement in American Schools by Adam R. Shapiro. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 48 (2014): 115-118.

“Ordering the Discipline: Classification in the History of Science,” introduction to a Focus Section, Isis (September 2013): 537-539. Open Access URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/673272

“Bibliography Is Social: Organizing Knowledge in the Isis Bibliography from Sarton to the Early Twenty-First Century,” part of a Focus Section, Isis (September 2013), pp. 540-550. Open Access URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/673273 

“History of the World History of Science Online Project,” Acta Baltica Historiae et Philosophiae Scientiarum (2013). Open Access URL: http://www.bahps.org/09_Weldon-2013-2-09.pdf (pdf).

“Recent Trends in Research in the Field of the History of Science,” Webinar Presentation for the Collections Forum on Science, Technology, and Engineering, Center for Research Laboratories, Annual Council Meeting, April 19, 2013. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDmywUFD_IA;presentation begins at 35:00 and runs to 1:17:00.  

“‘La classification des sciences n’a jamais cessé d’évoluer’: A Century of Effort at Putting Science in Its Place,” pp.307-328, in Ana M. Alfonso-Goldfarb et al., eds. Centenário Simão Mathias: Documentos, Métodos e Identidade da História da Ciência (São Paulo: PUC-SP; Imprensa Oficial, 2009). Link to Table of Contents of volume: http://www.pucsp.br/pos/cesima/publicacoes/centenario/sumario.pdf (pdf)