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21A.340J / STS.075J Technology and Culture, Fall 2003

Genetically modified apples.
Genetically modified apples. (Image adapted from "Apple Tree," courtesy of Petra Winkler and stock.xchng.)

Highlights of this Course

This course includes an extensive list of readings. 

Course Description

This course examines relationships among technology, culture, and politics in a variety of social and historical settings ranging from 19th century factories to 21st century techno dance floors, from colonial Melanesia to capitalist Massachusetts. We organize our discussions around three broad questions, corresponding to three syllabus themes: What cultural effects and risks follow from treating biology as technology? How have computers and information technologies changed the ways we think about ourselves? How are politics built into the infrastructures within which we live? We will be interested in how technologies have been used both to facilitate and undermine relations of inequality, and in whether technology has produced a better world, and for whom.
 

Staff

Instructor:
Prof. Stefan Helmreich

Course Meeting Times

Lectures:
One session / week
3 hours / session

Level

Undergraduate

Additional Features

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Translations
   Portuguese
   Spanish

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