Department Profile:
Founded in 1969 as a unique distance-teaching organisation, the Open University is dedicated to the production of innovative undergraduate courses in the history of science and technology. Degrees are pursued mainly at home in the student's own time and are built up on a modular system. Courses concentrate on broad themes and geographically extended areas, stretching to the fullest the consideration of those vast terms 'science' and 'technology' and maintaining the integrity of historical discipline. The department draws on long experience of distance-teaching methods and media presentations.
Faculty Teaching Staff:
Dr Mackie; Dr Roberts; Dr De Renzi; Deborah Brunton; Dr Colin Chant; Dr Peter Elmer; Professor James Moore; Dr Malcolm Oster;
Research Staff:
Dr Gerrylynn K Roberts(research fellow); Prof Emeritus Colin Russell(visiting research proffessor)
Areas of Expertise:
History of Chemistry; History of early modern medicine; social history and historiography of technology; Witchcraft, medicine and natural magic in the early modern period; Social history of natural theology and scientific naturalism, especially in the nineteenth century; Robert Boyle which currently involves research on his published and unpublished work on magnetism and the subterranean world, as well as his broader defence of the mechanical philosophy which characterised the new science;
