Assistant Professor Bill Lynch, 44, probably didn’t expect to be sitting in the history department, given his broad wealth of knowledge in science and technology. Wayne State’s Interdisciplinary Studies program tossed Lynch around various departments for about six years, and then it finally dissolved for good last year. He and the IS department were dispersed throughout the university, unsure of their futures.
Starting this semester, Lynch has landed in a more stable department, but he faces a new challenge: finding enough students to fill his section’s roster.
Prospective history students have not noticed one of his recently approved classes, a brand new course called the History of Energy.
“Seriously, for new courses, sometimes it takes a while for students to become aware of them,” said Marc W. Kruman, chair of the history department.
According to Kruman, the department gained five professors like Lynch from the defunct IS program. He said they offer history students a unique and important window to look into.
“Lynch’s an expert in the study of technology, as well as the history of technology,” Kruman said. “That experience is very valuable to us and to our students. The class will bring a valuable perspective on today’s energy crisis.”
As of Jan. 10, five students have enrolled into the “regular” section, and two others, according to Lynch, signed up for the honors section. Usually, a class like this, with fewer than ten registrants, calls for cancellation.
“Being that it’s a new class … I think I have enough [students],” Lynch said.
As of Jan. 7, he wrote in an e-mail that the class is “a go.” At that point, his class had eight students; now there are seven.
“Well, I think a lot of times for historians [and students] we tend to ignore scientific and technological issues a little bit, because we see it as a different field, as maybe beyond our natural skill-set that we’re used to,” Lynch said. “Modern society is so heavily shaped by developments in science and technology, and clearly it has been and will be shaped by new technologies of energy resource use.”
Lynch is something of an everyman, with interests all over the board. According to his faculty profile, his research areas include science, English, politics and urban issues.
Moreover, his published work has spanned politics, philosophy, social science and history of science and technology. He earned his doctorate at Cornell University in science and technology studies.
Regarding his new course, he looks at it as an opportunity that combines his interests into a current issue that affects everyone.
“The trick is that people need to look at how the industry shaped human society in many ways more profoundly than some of the things we think are big in history; more than kings and queens and parliaments and wars have done,” he said. “In many ways, the long-term impact of our engagement, broadly speaking, with the environment has had in shaping what is possible for society to do.
“We will be able to predict when constraints on resources take place and gauge what will happen when it does.”
History of Energy will be held Tuesdays and Thursdays in State Hall from 3-4:25 p.m.
Lynch also has a larger 1000-level class, called Society and the Economic Transition, resurrected by the history department.
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