11 - 20 of 22 results for: STS

Genetics, Ethics and Society. This course will explore three socially transforming components of genetics research that hold simultaneously liberating and constraining possibilities for populations and publics, both locally and globally. Topically the course will be divided into three sections. First, we will examine past and present issues dealing with the study of human subjects, as well as recent proposals to eventually bring full genome scans to every individual (personal genomics). Next we will learn of large-scale projects that aim to map the presence of environmental pathogens by their genetic signatures on a planetary scale and how different global populations may be affected. The last section of the course will focus on still other projects and policies that aim to expand the scope and capacity of state and international law enforcement through DNA-based forensics (the FBI CODIS database and the UK¿s Human Provenance Pilot Project). Projects like the latter also overlap with theories about community, families, and citizens who may or may not be linked through DNA. New concepts, such as the forensic "genetic informant" within a family unit, human DNA and isotope ¿country matches¿ in cases of state asylum, and DNA based kinship rules for family reunification in many Western countries, will be explored. In all three sections we will also examine scientific ethics when subject populations are minorities, or somehow structurally disadvantaged globally.n This capstone course will provide students with tools to explore and critically assess the various technical, social, and ethical positions of researchers, as well as the role of the state and certain publics in shaping scientific research agendas that promise to reorganize critical aspects of human life. Students will be encouraged to explore these dynamics within such important societal domains as health, law, markets of bio-surveillance, and the growing industry of disease and heritage DNA identity testing among others. We will read works from social scientists of science practice, ethicists, medial humanists and scientists. This course will equip students with tools to write about the intersection of science and society and to engage in a research project that relates to the topical foci of the course, broadly conceived.

Beginning with cave painting, carving, cuneiform, hieroglyph, and other early textual innovations, survey of the history of writing, image, sound, and byte, all text technologies employed to create, communicate and commemorate. Focus on the recording of language, remembrance and ideas explicating significant themes seen throughout history; these include censorship, propaganda, authenticity, apocalypticism, technophobia, reader response, democratization and authority. The production, transmission and reception of tablet technology, the scroll, the manuscript codex and handmade book, the machine-made book, newspapers and ephemera; and investigate the emergence of the phonograph and photograph, film, radio, television and digital multimedia.The impact of these various text technologies on their users, and try to draw out similarities and differences in our cultural and intellectual responses to evolving technologies. STS majors must have senior status to enroll in this senior capstone course.

Humans have long shaped and reshaped the natural world with technologies. Once a menacing presence to conquer or an infinite reserve for resources, nature is now understood to require constant protection from damage and loss. Humanity's relationships with the environment have changed over time and differed across societies. In this course, students (1) explore diverse ways in which people in different historical and cultural settings have conceptualized nature and their relationships with it, with a focus on the role of technology; and (2) learn the basics of STS research and conduct an original study that addresses this human-nature-technology nexus. First class attendance mandatory. STS majors must have senior status to enroll in this senior capstone course.

This course examines the social, cultural, and economic factors that foster novelty. We will study a wide array of historical contexts, from the Renaissance to the present day, in which clusters of related innovations transformed the way things are done. We ask when do such innovations cascade out and produce social inventions that, for good and bad, create profound changes in how things are done, leading to new forms of organizations and new categories of people. Seminar/lecture format, reading intensive, final term paper. Prerequisite: admission to the course is restricted to declared STS seniors and is by application only. Email Andrew Weger (aweger@stanford.edu) for an application. Applications must be submitted by 5pm on November 14th.

"Paperwork" is an intensive reading course in a seminar format, concerning the production, circulation and mediation of "paperwork" both as a material and symbolic infrastructure for the operation of modern institutions and governance. We will explore diverse techniques and technologies of paperwork, including note-taking, memos, lists, files, and documents, and forms of paperwork such as medical record, petition, passport, ID card, immigration paper, as well as archives and other mnemonic technologies both as cultural practices and reflexive objects. The goal of the course is to understand "bureaucracy" in the fields of law, business, and public administration, as well as in civil society generally, from the vantage point of concrete inscription, circulation, and storage of papers and documents. Readings will include works by Bruno Latour, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Cornelia Vismann, Friedrich Kittler, and others.

Critical analysis of ethical issues raised by recent or emerging advances in science and engineering. Issues: privacy, intellectual property, design equity, the public interest, ethical responsibilities of technical practitioners, research ethics, and freedom of inquiry. Advances from fields such as IT, biotechnology, nanotechnology, neurotechnology, construction technology, and transport technology. Seminar limited to 25 senior STS majors. Prerequisite: a course in ethics or permission of the instructor.

The dynamic relationship between art and technology and its formative impact on culture, politics and society. Beginning with Aristotle on the notion of techne and its implications for art and craft, the seminar will focus primarily on the modern period as well as contemporary developments. Topics: The invention of linear perspective during the Renaissance as influenced by Arab mathematics; the culture of optical devices and painting; the birth of photography and cinema and new forms of pictorial representation; the avant-garde and the ¿Machine Age¿; art and technology collaborations during the 1960s; interactivity and the rise of media arts; sound art; biotechnology and the arts. Guest speakers and possible field trips. Enrollment limited to STS Senior majors and art and art history majors.

Informed citizens living in today's world, and especially in Silicon Valley, should be able to formulate their own, articulate positions about the role of technology in culture. The course gives students the tools to do so. Against the trend towards the thoughtless celebration of all things technological, we will engage in critique in the two senses of the term: as careful study of the cultural implications of technology and as balanced, argumentative criticism. Can technology make life more meaningful, society more fair, people smarter, and the world smaller? Selections by fiction writers, philosophers and thinkers (such as Heidegger and Beller), as well as recent popular works of social commentary, such as You are not a Gadget, The Shallows, 24/7, and Present Shock.

For students in the STS Honors program. Every unit of credit is understood to represent three hours of work per week per term and is to be agreed upon between the student and the faculty member. May be repeated for credit.