Undergraduate Courses

 

STS 1504: Introduction to Humanities, Science & Technology

An introduction to ways of considering interrelationships among three of the major dimensions of our culture: its science, its technology, and its humanistic orientation.

STS 2054: Engineering Cultures

Development of engineering and its cultural roles in historical and cross-national perspectives. Explores roles of engineers and engineering in popular life, development of national styles, changing values in engineering problem solving, and effects of evolving forms of capitalism.

STS 2154: Humanities, Technology, & the Life Sciences

Examines the value-laden issues surrounding the professional dimensions of research in the biological and life sciences and provides humanistic perspectives on the role and function of science in society.

STS 2354: Humanities, Technology, & the Physical Sciences

Examines the value-laden issues surrounding the professional dimensions of research in the physical sciences and technology, and provides humanistic perspectives on the role and function of science in society.

STS 2464: Religion and Science

Exploration of the relationships between religion and science in the western tradition. Topics include: basic frameworks for relationships between religion and science in historical and cultural context; types of human knowledge and truth; similarities and differences between science and religion; evolution; ecology; and contemporary issues.

STS 3105, 3106: Science & Technology in Modern Society

Examination of science and technology as social and cultural activities in the modern world. 3105: institutions and values in science and technology; 3106: value conflicts and decision making in science and technology.

STS 3314: Medical Dilemmas & Human Exper

This course will explore medical dilemmas from a humanistic perspective, including topics related to assisted reproduction, genetic testing and treatment, organ transplantation, clinical trials, end-of-life interventions, and decisions regarding allocation of health-care resources.

STS 3705, 3706: History of Science

Conceptual and institutional development of physical and biological sciences viewed within a cultural and societal context. 3705: Early Science; 3706: Modern Science

STS 3715, 3716: History of Technology

Description of the development of technology and engineering in their social contexts. 3715: From prehistory to the industrial revolution in Europe and the United States, mid-19th cenury. 3716: From mid-19th century to the present./p>

STS 4304: Contemporary Issues in Humanities, Science & Technology

Contemporary humanistic issues, such as human freedom and the quality of life, emerging from scientific and technological research in the areas of genetic and reproductive interventions, biotechnology, and environmental studies.

STS 4704: Gender and Science

Investigates the gender dimensions of science in both historical and contemporary perspectives. Discusses feminist studies of science, exploring strengths and limitations. Assess implications of cultural assumptions about gender for practicing scientists. A 3000 level course in science or engineering may satisfy the prerequisite.

STS 4974: Independent Study

Variable credit course.

 

Core Courses

 

STS/SOC 5105,6: Contemporary Issues in Science and Technology Studies

In these courses, theoretical and methodological issues addressed in the interdisciplinary social study of contemporary science and technology are discussed. The development of interdisciplinary social studies of science, focusing on processes of knowledge production and knowledge maintenance in science and on the place of organizational and institutional arrangements in scientific activities, is reviewed. Major theoretical traditions in the social studies of science are introduced. Also reviewed is the recent emergence of interdisciplinary perspectives in technology studies from narrower disciplinary interests, focusing on the nature of technological change, technical controversies, decision making in technology, and science and technology policy.

STS/HIST 5205,6 Main Themes in the History of Science and Technology

In these courses, methods and concepts in the history of science and technology are presented. The two-semester sequence is designed as an intensive, interdisciplinary introduction to the history of science and technology. The use of historical data that play a central evidentiary role in the testing of all manner of hypotheses within STS is emphasized. Some of the major schools of history and the core techniques of historical investigation are presented. Questions are raised about the place of history as both a practice and a process in contemporary philosophical and sociological debates about science. The focus on technology emphasizes the major approaches to the major themes that have been studied during the past 30 years. The way that the most influential practitioners have addressed issues in the history of technology will be reviewed and methodological trends discussed.

STS/PHIL 5305,6: Main Themes in the Philosophy of Modern Science and Technology

In these courses, problems, literature and schools in the philosophy of science and technology are reviewed. Major models of scientific explanation (especially Hempel's and Salmon's) and their major criticisms are emphasized. The "quantitative" theory of confirmation and some of the best-known paradoxes of confirmation are considered. In addition, an introduction to historically oriented philosophy of science is presented. Topics covered include philosophical models of scientific change, historiographical issues, the testing of philosophical models, and their relation to recent sociology of science.

STS/PAPA 5614: Introduction to Science and Technology Policy

Strategies for science and technology policy; science education; scientific and technical information for societal uses; government and public policy; resource allocation; economy and global exchanges of science and technology; approaches to policy evaluation. This course helps graduate students in Science and Technology Studies prepare to work in non-academic environments in which knowledge of science and technology policy is important. It also helps graduate students in Public Administration and Policy understand the relations among different types of public policy, including science and technology policy. The course provides a systematic introduction to science and technology policy, reviewing the major arenas of policy-making and surveying recent approaches to the study of science and technology policy.

 

Topics Courses (5000 level)

 

STS/HIST 5404 Development of Modern American Science

Development of the sciences and the community of scientists in the American national context. Emphasis on scientific, institutional, and social events from 1830s through 1980s, including the circumstances surrounding the creation of nuclear weapons and the emergence of "big science." An interdisciplinary perspective, exploring traditional and contemporary historiographical and methodological issues and approaches.

STS 5424 Topics in Science and Technology Studies

Variable topics in Science and Technology Studies such as the role of values in science and technology, risk assessment, and past and present relations of religion to science and technology are discussed.

STS 5444 Issues in Bioethics

Identification and analysis of ethical issues arising in basic and applied biological, medical, environmental, ecological, and energy studies. The recent advances in the foundations of biology, and their practical applications in areas such as genetic engineering, biotechnology, medicine, and environmental, energy, and population policy studies, have raised a host of ethical issues. The field of bioethics, which has grown increasingly important since its start in the 1970s, has focused on gaining greater insight into the origins and development of these issues as well as identifying and evaluating ways of addressing some of the personal and societal dilemmas that have been created. Bioethical analysis combines a knowledge of the relevant scientific and technical elements with the resources of disciplines such as history, philosophy, and sociology. This course will apply the powerful interdisciplinary methodology of bioethics to selected topic areas with an emphasis on those of current concern.

STS 5514 Research Designs and Practices for STS

This course examines research designs and practices that uncover historical relationships between knowledge contents and social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine. Topics covered may include: archival research, archaeology of instruments and physical spaces, interviewing for knowledge content, logical and conceptual analysis, participant observation, questionnaires, and proposal preparation. The master's theses and doctoral dissertations of STS students typically examine historical relationships among the knowledge contents and social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine. Given the interdisciplinary nature of this activity, STS researchers must not only integrate and synthesize research designs and practices from other disciplines but they must also formulate new strategies to take account of novel problems. In contrast with disciplinary designs and practices, research topics in STS explore knowledge and social dimensions simultaneously.

STS 5974 Independent Study

STS 5994 Research and Thesis

 

Topics Courses (6000 level)

 

STS/HIST 6224 Science, Technology and the Enlightenment

Science, technology, and medicine and their social and cultural interrelationships in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The modern agenda: nature, knowledge, and progress; early social science. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw the birth of the modern agenda in which science, technology and medicine figured prominently in the vision of a new society. This was a key period in that history. It saw the consolidation and application of Newtonian science, the Industrial Revolution, and the emergence of a new utilitarian and progressive picture of the importance and significance of science and technology. This was the historical period in which technology and commerce were fused in industry and when empirical science came to attain the importance it has in modern culture.

STS/HIST 6234 Advanced Topics in the History of Modern Science, Technology, and Medicine

Variable topics in history of science, technology, and medicine after 1800, such as the atomic age; space science; science, technology, and institutions; scientific and technological medicine; and environmental history. Sample topics: (1) Conservation, ecology, and environmentalism; (2) Science, technology, and institutions: An historical treatment of business and governmental institutions and their reciprocal effect on science and technology.

STS/PHIL 6314 History of the Philosophy of Science

In this course, philosophers of science from 1650 to 1900 with particular attention to the historical development of views about the methods of induction and hypothesis, and accounts of theory testing are discussed. Some of the major ideas and core figures of the evolution of the philosophy of science, from antiquity to the early twentieth century, are presented.

STS/PHIL 6334 Advanced Topics in Philosophy of Science

Variable topics in advanced philosophy of science, including major theories of scientific explanation and their criticisms; philosophical foundations of statistics; naturalized philosophy of science. Sample topics: (1) Scientific explanation; (2) Philosophical foundations of statistics.

STS/PHIL 6514 Cognitive Studies of Science and Technology

Applications of cognitive science to science and technology studies. Includes category theory, cognitive error theory, and computer modeling as research tools in projects linking history, philosophy, and sociology of science. A new movement in science studies applies cognitive science to issues previously treated by history, philosophy, and sociology of science. The course examines this movement by addressing the reasons for its appearance, sketching the relevant theories from cognitive science and other areas, surveying the different approaches within the "cognitive turn," and discussing various criticisms of the movement itself and of particular programs. We examine work on categorization, cognitive errors, induction, memory, and connectionism as the motivating paradigms in history, philosophy and sociology of science for constructing plausible models, including attempts to model scientific change, induction and explanation.

STS 6524 Critical Approaches to Science and Technology

This course explores the diverse traditions of criticism of Western science and technology. These criticisms focus on the long-term, large-scale effects of the spread of the mathematical and experimental sciences over the last 350 years. A special object of attention is the amalgamation of science and technology into "technoscience," and the changes it has produced in the everyday lives of ordinary people around the world. The traditions canvassed include not only feminist, Marxist, and ecological critiques, but also more mainstream visions of reform. The course also considers responses from the scientific community. The course prepares students for wider cultural debates about the costs and benefits of science and technology to society.

STS 6534 Cultural Studies of Science, Technology and Medicine

This course examines the articulation of science, technology, and medicine in diverse cultural contexts. It focuses on exchange of metaphors and forms of discourse with other cultural activities. Topics covered may include knowledge forms in popular domains, cultural performances, fashioning of selves, power relations across boundaries, cross-cultural comparisons, and cultural critiques. Cultural studies of science, technology, and medicine is a fast-growing new field of research and teaching in STS. Interdisciplinary work in this field focuses on an examination of science, technology, and medicine within specific cultural contexts. Both research and teaching examine how science, technology, and medicine constrain and shape both the broader cultures in which they function as well as more specific cultural activities. Cultural studies analyze how practitioners use existing cultural institutions, activities and modes of discourse to further their own interests and increase their cultural authority.

STS 6614 Advanced Topics in Technology Studies

Variable topics in technology studies, including knowledge and power in technology, development and structure of knowledge in technology and engineering, social construction of technology, gender and technology, engineering in society, human/nonhuman relations in technology. Sample topics: (1) Technological knowledge; (2) Social construction of technology.

STS 6624 Advanced Topics in Life Sciences and Medicine

Variable topics in the life sciences and medicine, such as the reception of Darwinism, conceptual foundations of biology, history of genetics, scientific and technological medicine, public health and epidemiology Sample topic: This course examines Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and then turns to the reception of Darwinism in various countries. It focuses particularly on controversies regarding the content and merit of Darwinian views (including claims about evolutionary mechanisms) during three or four periods: 1859-1870, the turn of the century, 1935-1950, and, time permitting, the last fifteen years or so. We will explore a number of criticisms of Darwinism that have reappeared repeatedly, emphasizing the role of methodological and philosophical criticisms of the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Students will be asked to grapple with questions about the influence of national traditions and of the larger social settings of the controversies examined on the interpretation and evaluation of 'Darwinian' views.

STS/PHIL 6634 Advanced Topics in Natural Philosophy

Variable topics in natural philosophy, including natural history up to the early modern period, such as ancient astronomical and cosmological theories, Peripatetic physics, Stoic physics, Scholastic theories of space and time, Renaissance atomism, Cartesian cosmology. This course is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing equally on recent research in history of science and philosophy. Apart from the intrinsic importance of the subject, the material and methods presented in the course form essential background for advanced work in the history and philosophy of the ancient, medieval and early modern periods. "Natural Philosophy" is the term used to indicate the areas of knowledge now called physics and astronomy, but including metaphysics, cosmology, natural history, and other sciences.

STS 6644 Advanced Topics in Physical Sciences

Variable topics in physical sciences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Includes electromagnetic theory from Faraday to Einstein; development of physics and engineering in national contexts; historical and philosophical development of relativity and quantum theory. This course is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing equally on recent research in history of science and philosophy of science. The course prepares students for subsequent work in philosophical and historical issues connected with 19th and 20th century physical science. Sample course titles: (1) electromagnetism and field theory from Faraday to Einstein and (2) development of the physics community in the United States, 1846-1995.

STS/PAPA 6664 Advanced Topics in Science and Technology Policy

Variable topics in science and technology policy. Includes advanced study of science, technology, and economy; science, technology, and power; strategies for research and development policy -- public and private sectors; transfer of technology; technological forecasting; government regulation and responses; science policy assumptions and challenges; specialist knowledge and expertise; state and academic knowledge production; issues of race, class, gender, and national identity in policy work. Sample topics: (1) Research and development policy; (2) Expert knowledge in science and technology policy. This course helps students to understand the construction and organization of expert knowledge so they will not view expertise unproblematically, thus better preparing them to participate critically in policy making and analysis.

STS 6674 Advanced Topics in Alternate Perspectives on Science, Technology, and Medicine

Variable topics in alternate perspectives. Includes science from scientists' perspectives, indigenous knowledge forms, alternative medicine, New Age science, cyborg theorizing, heterodox perspectives. Sample topics: (1) Scientists' perspective: a holistic view. This course examines scientists' perspectives on the role of science in modern society; (2) Nonwestern perspectives on science and technology: Any systematic study of the meanings, social origins, institutions, and practices of science and technology cannot be carried out without examining the national and cultural settings of the societies within which they are embedded.

STS/SOC 6824 Normative Structuring of Science and Technology

This course surveys in depth alternative approaches to the social structuring of contemporary science and technology. It explores the social judgments that construct and reproduce science in the plural as a diversity of knowledge-based activities and institutions that coexist with other such activities and institutions. Key questions include accounting for modes of legitimization; gender, race, and class relations; reward structures; modes of communication; and other relations of knowledge and power.

STS/SOC 6834 Advanced Topics in Social Studies of Science, Technology, and Medicine

Variable topics in social studies of science, technology, and medicine, including studies of disciplines, institutions, boundaries, discourses, knowledge, and practice. Sample topics: (1) Emergence and institutionalization of scientific disciplines: By examining the emergence and institutionalization of scientific disciplines, this course provides an excellent opportunity for exploring links between macro- and micro-level processes in science; (2) Medicine in society. This course provides students with the opportunity to analyze the intimate relations of medicine and society, including the social construction of disease, the medicalization of society, the development of medical authority, the power relations inherent in medicine deriving from cultural authority, status, and economic clout. STS 7994 Research and Dissertation