If science and technology are value-laden activities, then where exactly do the values lie? In this class, we will pick apart the black-box of science and technology and look for values not just in terms of bad actors, corruption, or "implications," but in the processes that constitute modern technoscience itself. These processes include: the ways in which researchers construct problems, solutions, facts, and artifacts; the norms, standards, stories, and patronage relations that underlie science and technology; and finally, how the future is imagined and realized. Readings will include academic and journalistic texts as well as science fiction.
If science and technology are value-laden activities, then where exactly do the values lie? In this class, we will pick apart the black-box of science and technology and look for values not just in terms of bad actors, corruption, or "implications," but in the processes that constitute modern technoscience itself. These processes include: the ways in which researchers construct problems, solutions, facts, and artifacts; the norms, standards, stories, and patronage relations that underlie science and technology; and finally, how the future is imagined and realized. Readings will include academic and journalistic texts as well as science fiction.