Rachel N. Ponce

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Research and Teaching Interests

History of Medicine and Science, History of Psychiatry, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century American Social and Legal History, Urban History

Education

University of Chicago
Ph.D. Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science and United States History (expected 2012)

University of Chicago
M.A., Social Sciences, June 2002.
Thesis: "Homicidal Monomania: Lay and Expert Testimony in Antebellum Insanity Trials," Supervisors: Jan Goldstein and Dorothee Brantz.

University of California, Berkeley
B.A., History, cum laude June 2001.
Honors Thesis: "Reform Frustrated: The Rise of the Juvenile Reform School in Antebellum America," Supervisors: Thomas Barnes, Robin Einhorn, and David Henkin.
Thesis: "Poisoning the Fountains of Instruction: Slavery and Textbooks in the Antebellum South," Supervisor: Robin Einhorn.

Exam Fields

History of Medicine, with Robert Richards & Cathy Gere (April 2006)

American Legal History in the Nineteenth Century, with William Novak (March 2007)

Colonial America, with Edward M. Cook, Jr. (March 2007)

Philosophy of Science, with Robert Richards & Warren Schmaus (October 2007)

Publications

Review of The Measure of Merit: Talents, Intelligence, and Inequality in the French and American Republics, 1750-1940 by John Carson. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 63:2 (2008) 268-270.

"'They Increase in Beauty and Elegance': Cadavers, Dissection, and Transformation in Early Nineteenth-Century American Medical Education," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (in press).

Honors and Awards

Morris Fishbein Fellowship (2003-2008)

University Unendowed Fellowship, Divison of the Humanities, University of Chicago (2003-07)

Doolittle Harrison Fellowship, University of Chicago (2007)

University Unendowed Scholarship, Master of the Arts Program in the Social Sciences, University of Chicago (2001-02)

Phi Alpha Theta, University of California, Berkeley (2001)

Visiting Scholar, Harvard University, (2000-01)

Teaching Experience

Lector: Academic/Professional Writing (ENGL 13000)
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Winter 2010.

Instructor: Social History of Psychiatry in the United States, 1750-1947 (HIPS 29103/HIST 24907)
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Fall 2008.

Intern: America in World Civilization I (HIST 13500)
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Fall 2008.

B.A. Advisor (with Jonathan Tsou): Roshan Ahmed, History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2008

Teaching Assistant: Tolkien: Medieval and Modern (HIST 29902)
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Spring 2008

Instructor: Medicine, Disease, and Death in American History (HIPS 29606/HIST 24904)
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Spring 2007.

B.A. Advisor: Alta Buden, History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine, University of Chicago, 2006-2007.

Guest Lecture: "Public Health and the Avalanche of Numbers," Science Culture and Society in Western Civilization III
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, April 18, 2006.

Teaching Assistant: Science, Culture, and Society in Western Civilization I, II, & III (HIPS 17300, 17400, 17500/HIST 17300, 17400, 17502)
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Fall 2005-Spring 2006.

Teaching Assistant: Science, Culture, and Society in Western Civilization I & II (HIPS 17300, 17400/ HIST 173000, 17400)
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Fall 2004 - Winter 2005.

Docent: "The Changing Face of Medicine"
International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago, IL, 2003-2006

Papers Presented

"Sciences of Simulation and Detection: The Butterine Controversy and Federal Regulation in America, 1870-1910," accepted to be presented at the History of Science Society Annual Meeting, November 2011.

"'They Increase in Beauty and Elegance': Cadavers As Models in American Medical Education, 1800-1850," presented at the Society for the Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, August 2010.

"'Crazy, bedeviled, bewitched or something': Concepts of Insanity in the United States, 1800-1843," presented at the History of Science Society Annual Meeting, November 2009.

"'Chimerical Dogmas': Honor and Insanity in Nineteenth-Century American Law," presented at the Society for Legal History Annual Meeting, November 2009.

"'Unnatural Murder' in the Early Republic: Madness, Morality, and Family" presented at the Social History Workshop at the University of Chicago, October 2009.

"Temporary Insanity and the Law: Evidentiary Limits in 19th-Century Psychiatry," presented at "Origins: The Historical Sciences in the Age of Darwin," The Chicago Max-Planck Symposium at the University of Chicago, June 2009.

"'Unnatural Murder' in the Early Republic: Madness, Morality, and Family," presented at "Manifesting Madness: Historical Interpretations of the Exceptional, the Marginal, and the 'Normal,'" Northwestern University Center for Historical Studies, April 2009.

"Partial Insanity on Trial: Medical and Lay Conceptions of Insanity in Antebellum America," American Association for the History of Medicine Annual Meeting, May 2007.

"Murder, Passion, and Insanity: Sympathy and Pathology in Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century France and the U.S." History of Science Society Annual Meeting, November 2006 (session co-organizer).

"'They Increase in Beauty and Elegance': Transformations of the Cadaver in American Medical Education, 1800-1860," Midwest Junto for the History of Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison, April 2006.

"Dissecting Hostility: Style and Professional Legitimacy in Antebellum Medical Journals," 2005 Tufts English Graduate Organization Conference, October 2005.

"Animosity and Solidarity: The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal," Midwest Junto for the History of Science, Truman State University, April 2005.

"Homicidal Monomania: Lay and Expert Testimony in Antebellum Insanity Trials" Human Sciences Workshop, University of Chicago, May 2002.

"Unmaking Suburbia: Urbanization and Resistance in Livermore, California," Phi Alpha Theta Northern Regional Conference, Santa Clara University, April, 2001.

Commentaries

Commentary on Dawn Biehler, "Gendered, Raced, and Crowded Rodents: the Urban-Ecological Gaze in John Calhoun's Rat Cities," University of Chicago. History of Human Sciences Workshop, May 2011.

Commentary on Kimberly Hamlin, "The Case of a Bearded Woman: Hypertrichosis and the Construction of Gender in the Age of Darwin," University of Chicago. History of Human Sciences Workshop, October 2010.

Commentary on Nathaniel Comfort, "The Prisoner as Model Organism: Malaria Research at Statesville Penitentiary," University of Chicago. History of Human Sciences Workshop, October 2007.

Commentary on Cecelia Watson, "If Books Could Kill: The Overstudy Epidemic in Victorian America," University of Chicago, History of Human Sciences Workshop, May 2007.

Commentary on Andreas Mayer, "The Art and Science of Walking: Toward a History of the Pedestrian Age," University of Chicago, History of Human Sciences Workshop, October, 2006.

Commentary on Robin Valenza, "The Economies of Knowledge, 1700-1820," University of Chicago, History of Human Sciences Workshop, February 2006.

Commentary on Maneesha Lal, "Of Vitamins and Veils: Women Physicians, Transnational Medical Research, and Osteomalacia in Late Colonial India," University of Chicago, History of Human Sciences Workshop, January 2004.

Chair, Nuhket Abasar, "Plague in the Ottoman Empire in the 16th Century," University of Chicago, History and Philosophy of Science Graduate Student Workshop, January 2004.

Professional Service

Co-Coordinator of the History and Philosophy of Science Workshop, The University of Chicago, Fall 2011 to Spring 2012

Co-Coordinator of the History of Human Sciences Workshop, The University of Chicago, Fall 2011 to Spring 2012

Representative and Report Co-Author, CHSS Website Review Committee, The University of Chicago, June 2010-October 2011

Panelist on Making Mid-Course Adjustments, Annual Workshop on Teaching in the College, University of Chicago, September 2009.

Panelist on Being a TA in the Social Sciences, Annual Workshop on Teaching in the College, University of Chicago, September 2008.

Member of Provost's Working Group on Graduate Student Life in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Divinity School, University of Chicago, Fall 2007.

Organization & Selection Committee, MEPHISTOS Conference, University of Chicago, April 2006.

Professional Affiliations

American Historical Association, 2003-present.

History of Science Society, 2004-present.

American Association of the History of Medicine, 2006-present.

Organization of American Historians, 2006-present.

Graduate Coursework

Natural Philosophy 1200-1800 (Adrian Johns), Sciences of the Mind: French Revolution to the Great War (Alison Winter), History and Philosophy of Psychology (Robert Richards), Colloquium on Intellectual History (Jan Goldstein and James Ketelaar), Communicating Scientific Knowledge: 16th-21st Centuries (Francoise Waquet), History of the Anatomy of Thought (Cathy Gere), Social Psychology (Nancy Stein and Thomas Trabasso), Historical Methods (Robin Derby), Perspectives in Social Science (John MacAloon), Early America (Edward Cook), Europe 1748-1848 (Jan Goldstein), Paris and Vienna (John Boyer and Jan Goldstein), Urban Landscape as a Social Text (Michael Conzen), Values and Scientific Change (Warren Schmaus), American Legal History (William Novak), Slavery, Antislavery, and Empire (Julie Saville), Introduction to Philosophy of Science (Kevin Davey), Natural Laws and Laws of Nature (Lorraine Daston), Literary History of Schizophrenia (Yvonne Wübben), and Human Morphology (Callum Ross).