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TECHNOLOGY, SCIENCE, AND SOCIETYComparative Studies 2341

Autumn 2014Professor David Horn

Class meetings: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:10-10:05, Page Hall 0010Office Hours: Tuesday, 12:30-2:00, or by appointment, Hagerty Hall 428

Phone: 292-2559; E-mail:horn.5@osu.edu

Recitation sections:Seth Josephson (josephson.3@osu.edu)

Tuesday, 4:105:05, Journalism 0139Wednesday, 3:003:55, Jennings Hall 0164

Gabriel Piser (piser.1@osu.edu)

Thursday, 4:105:05, Scott Lab E0105Friday, 3:003:55, Hagerty Hall 0351

I. Course Description

This course explores, from a variety of perspectives, the multiple relations among socialand cultural formations, scientific and technical work, and the production andcirculation of knowledge. Topics include the everyday life of the laboratory; theshifting boundaries of science and other ways of knowing; the political and ethicalcontours of scientific and technical work; and the social effects of objects and

technological systems.

Lectures will frequently focus on material not addressed in the assigned readings, aswell as introduce terms for which you will be responsible on exams and in papers;recitation meetings will be devoted to careful consideration of texts and films, and tothe review of issues raised in lectures. It is therefore essential that you complete eachweeks readings before attending your recitation section, be present at all lectures andscreenings, and be prepared to ask questions and contribute to discussions.

You will be graded on the basis of your attendance and participation in lecture and

recitation sections (10%), and on the basis of your performance on an in-class midtermexam (30%), a five-page essay (30%), and a final exam (30%). Exams will combine shortanswer/identification and essay questions. More than two unexcused absences fromlectures or recitation sections will result in a grade penalty.

This class fulfills the GE Cultures and Ideas and the Diversity: Global Studiesrequirements (see section VI below), as well as the College of Engineerings ProfessionalEthics requirement. Assessments of progress toward GE and course goals will be

mailto:horn.5@osu.edumailto:horn.5@osu.edumailto:horn.5@osu.edumailto:josephson.3@osu.edumailto:josephson.3@osu.edumailto:josephson.3@osu.edumailto:piser.1@osu.edumailto:piser.1@osu.edumailto:piser.1@osu.edumailto:piser.1@osu.edumailto:josephson.3@osu.edumailto:horn.5@osu.edu

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2incorporated into exams and writing assignments.

II. Texts (available at SBX and Barnes & Noble)

Ruth Schwartz Cowan,

More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology FromThe Open Hearth To The Microwave (Basic, 1985)Sharon Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists(HarvardUniversity Press, 1988)Sherry Turkle,Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from EachOther (Basic, 2012)Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of HighTechnology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986)

III. Schedule of Readings

Week 1: Introduction

28 August Introduction

Week 2: Technology, Science, and Society

2 September Lecture: Our Two Cultures

4 September Lecture: Technologies, Lives, and Politics

Read: Winner, Technologies as Forms of Lifeand TechnandPoliteia,in The Whale and the Reactor, 318 and 4058

Week 3: Black Boxes and Blurred Boundaries

9 September Lecture: Making Facts and Machines

11 September Lecture: Contested Terms: Science and Its Others

Read: Bruno Latour, Opening Pandoras Black Box, in Science in Action(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 117 (Carmen)

Andrew Ross, New Age: A Kinder, Gentler Science? in Strange

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3Weather: Culture, Science, and Technology in the Age of Limits(London: Verso, 1991), 1574 (Carmen)

Week 4: Science and Revolution

16 September Lecture: Normal and Abnormal Science

18 September Lecture: Incommensurability

Read: Thomas Kuhn,The Structure of Scientific Revolutions(Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1962), 134, 5265, 111-135 (Carmen)

Week 5: Science and Difference

23 September Lecture: Revolution and the Female Skeleton

25 September Lecture: Technologies for the Production of Difference

Read: Steven Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 5161, 176263 (Carmen)

Week 6: Science and Culture

30 September Lecture: Culture of No Culture

2 October Lecture: Rites of Passage

Read: Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes, ix162

Week 7: Making Physicists, Making Bombs

7 October Film: Day after Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb ,Jon Else (Pyramid, 1981)

9 October Film: Day After Trinity(continued)

Week 8: Technology, Ethics, and Politics

14 October Lecture: Knowing Sin?

Read: Winner, Do Artifacts Have Politics? in The Whale and the Reactor,

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41939

16 October In-class midterm

Week 9: Domestic Technologies

21 October Lecture: Gender and Technology: The Story of Man the Hunter

23 October Lecture: Engineering the Domestic Sphere

Read: Schwartz Cowan,More Work For Mother, 315, 69150, 192216

Week 10: Energy

28 October Lecture: Questioning Questionable Questions (Piser)

30 October Lecture: Science for What Future? (Piser)

Read: Laura Nader, Barriers to Thinking New about Energy, PhysicsToday (1981), 9, 99100, 102, 104 (Carmen)

Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, The Collapse of WesternCivilization: A View from the Future, Daedalus 142 (2013), 4058(Carmen)

Week 11: Risk and Crisis

4 November Lecture: The Life and Death of Nature

6 November Lecture: Making and Taking Risks

Read: Winner, The State of Nature Revisited and On Not Hitting the

Tar Baby, in The Whale and the Reactor, 12154

Week 12: Technologies of Food

11 November No Class (Veterans Day)

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513 November Movie: Food, Inc., Robert Kenner (Magnolia, 2008)

Paper dueWeek 13: Animals and Us

18 November Movie: Food,Inc.(continued)

20 November Lecture: Eating Animals (Josephson)

Read: John Berger, Why Look at Animals? inAbout Looking (Pantheon,1980), 328 (Carmen)

Week 14: The Limits of the Human

25 November Lecture: Post-human/Trans-human(Josephson)

27 November No Class (Thanksgiving)

Listen: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91716-henriettas-tumor/

Week 15: Redefining the Social

2 December Lecture: The Human and the Machine

4 November Lecture: Cyber-community

Read: Turkle,Alone Together, selections

Week 16: Summing Up

9 December Lecture: Ethics and Politics Revisited

Read: Winner, Brandy, Cigars, and Human Values, in The Whale and theReactor, 15563

12 December Final exam

IV. Students With Disabilities

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6Students with disabilities that have been certified by the Office for Disability Serviceswill be appropriately accommodated and should inform the instructor as soon aspossible of their needs. The Office for Disability Services is located in 150 PomereneHall, 1760 Neil Avenue; telephone 292-3307, TDD 292-0901;www.ods.ohio-state.edu.

V. Academic Integrity

It is the responsibility of the Committee on Academic Misconduct to investigate orestablish procedures for the investigation of all reported cases of student academicmisconduct. The term academic misconduct includes all forms of student academicmisconduct wherever committed; illustrated by, but not limited to, cases of plagiarismand dishonest practices in connection with examinations. Instructors shall report allinstances of alleged academic misconduct to the committee (Faculty Rule 3335-5-487).For additional information, see the Code of Student Conduct (studentlife.osu.edu/csc).

VI. GE Expected Learning Outcomes

1. Cultures and Ideas

Expected Learning Outcomes:

1. Students analyze and interpret major forms of human thought, culture, andexpression.

2.

Students evaluate how ideas influence the character of human beliefs, theperception of reality, and the norms that guide human behavior.

2. Diversity (Global Studies)

Expected Learning Outcomes:

1. Students understand some of the political, economic, cultural, physical, social,and philosophical aspects of one or more of the worlds nations, peoples andcultures outside the U.S.

2. Students recognize the role of national and international diversity in shapingtheir own attitudes and values as global citizens.

Comparative Studies 2341 enables students to analyze and interpret scientificdiscourses and technological systems, in and outside the United States; to evaluate howideas shape the norms that guide scientific and technical work; and to ask sophisticated

http://www.ods.ohio-state.edu/http://www.ods.ohio-state.edu/http://www.ods.ohio-state.edu/http://www.ods.ohio-state.edu/

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7questions about the cultural contexts and social effects of new sciences andtechnologies. In these ways and others, it prepares students to be self-aware globalcitizens.