The Princeton Pre-read Tradition
The Pre-read program, initiated by President Christopher L. Eisgruber in 2013, introduces incoming undergraduate students to Princeton’s intellectual life.
Members of the incoming class join together to read and discuss a book that President Eisgruber selects and sends to first-year students prior to their arrival on campus. First-year students then participate in Pre-read discussions with student leaders during Orientation Week and with President Eisgruber over the course of the academic year. Other University community members also are encouraged to read and discuss the Pre-read selection.
Class of 2029 Selection: On the Fringe: When Science Meets Pseudoscience.
President Eisgruber’s Princeton Pre-read selection for the Class of 2029 is On the Fringe: When Science Meets Pseudoscience by Professor Michael D. Gordin, the Dean of the College.
Professor Gordon’s book explores the philosophical and historical attempts to address the problem of deciding what is pseudoscience, and what is not. It argues that by understanding doctrines that are often seen as antithetical to science, we can learn a great deal about how science operated in the past and does today. This exploration raises several questions: How does a doctrine become demonized as pseudoscientific? Who has the authority to make these pronouncements? How is the status of science shaped by political or cultural contexts? How does pseudoscience differ from scientific fraud? On the way to answering these questions, Dean Gordin guides readers along a bewildering array of marginalized doctrines, looking at parapsychology (ESP), Lysenkoism, scientific racism, and alchemy, among others, to better understand the struggle to define what science is and is not, and how the controversies have shifted over the centuries. On the Fringe provides a historical tour through many of these fringe fields in order to provide tools to think deeply about scientific controversies both in the past and in our present.
Copies of On the Fringe: When Science Meets Pseudoscience will be available to community members beginning in June 2025. Please take note of the following information:
- Incoming undergraduate students and student leaders (PAAs, RCAs, and RGSs) will automatically receive a copy of the Pre-read. If you have any questions about this process, please contact [email protected].
- Incoming graduate students will receive a copy of the Pre-read book from their department after arriving on campus for the fall semester. If you have any questions about this process, please contact [email protected].
- Regular faculty members (assistant, associate, and full professors; instructor, lecturer, lecturer with the rank of professor, professor of the practice, senior lecturer, and University lecturer; and professors emeritus who are teaching) will automatically receive a copy of the Pre-read delivered to their home department.
Pre-read requests for all other University faculty, staff, alumni, and current students should be submitted via this form.
Learn more about On the Fringe: When Science Meets Pseudoscience.
Reviews
"Gordin's book should be mandatory reading for all those interested in the nature of science and pseudoscience. On the Fringe provides an excellent exposition of a wide diversity of pseudoscientifc doctrines, something which certainly can help to devise more useful demarcation criteria." -- Juan Gefaell, Metascience
"Michael Gordin's book adds at least two important aspects to the literature. First, as a historian, he puts some of the pseudosciences in a historical perspective that is seldom presented. Secondly, he contributes to the systematic treatment of pseudosciences by introducing four groups of such teachings." -- SVEN OVE HANSSON, Society for US Intellectual History
"Most discussions of pseudoscience focus on a handful of well-studied examples. Michael Gordin's deeply-informed tour of the fringes of science takes readers on a fascinating safari, in which we not only discover new aspects of the familiar forms but also learn about many exotic species. He proves an ideal guide." ― Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Columbia University
Previous Pre-Read Selections
Class of 2017: The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Class of 2018: Meaning in Life and Why It Matters by Susan Wolf
Class of 2019: Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do by Claude Steele
Class of 2021: What is Populism? by Jan-Werner Müller
Class of 2022: Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech by Keith Whittington
Class of 2024: This America by Jill Lepore
Class of 2026: Every Day the River Changes: Four Weeks Down the Magdalena by Jordan Salama
Class of 2027: How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for our Future by Maria Ressa
