Bodies, Machines, and Meaning: Cultural Studies of the Sciences
SISP 366
Spring 2021 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
PHIL 366 |
Cultural studies of the sciences shift the focus of interdisciplinary science studies from understanding the sciences as producing and justifying knowledge to understanding them as meaning-making and world-transforming practices. Cultural studies attend to scientific meaning-making at multiple levels, and to the interactions among them: concrete material relations among bodies, technologies, and their settings or situations; verbal, visual, corporeal, mathematical, and other expressive performances; and social, cultural, or political institutions, practices, boundaries, and movements across and within them. Cultural studies of science also emphasizes political engagement with scientific practices and their broader cultural entanglements. This course explores what it means to do cultural studies of science, with a focus on three interrelated themes: alternative conceptions of what it means to make claims and reason about what happens in "nature"; case studies in how scientific meaning and understanding are embodied and prosthetically extended technologically; and some specific conceptual and material relations among scientific understandings of life, bodies, sex, reproduction, and being human. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS PHIL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (PHIL)(PHIL-Philosophy)(PHIL-Social Jus) |
Major Readings:
Robert Brandom, SEMANTIC INFERENTIALISM
Richard Rorty, UNFAMILIAR NOISES
John Haugeland, MIND EMBODIED AND EMBEDDED
Mario Biagioli, GALILEO'S SELF-FASHIONING
Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, LEVIATHAN AND THE AIR PUMP (selections)
Bruno Latour, POSTMODERN? NO, AMODERN and ONE MORE TURN AFTER THE SOCIAL TURN
Emily Martin, ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE CULTURAL STUDY OF SCIENCE
Donna Haraway, MODEST_WITNESS@SECOND_MILLENIUM (selections)
Sharon Traweek, INVENTING MACHINES THAT DISCOVER NATURE and ICONIC DEVICES
Natasha Myers, RENDERING LIFE MOLECULAR (selections)
Paul Edwards, THE CLOSED WORLD (selections)
Judith Genova, TURING'S SEXUAL GUESSING GAME
Stefan Helmreich, THE WORD FOR WORLD IS COMPUTER
John Haugeland, UNDERSTANDING NATURAL LANGUAGE
Evelyn Fox Keller, REFIGURING LIFE (selections)
Donna Haraway, APES IN EDEN, APES IN SPACE and/or PRIMATOLOGY IS POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS
Emily Martin, FLEXIBLE BODIES (selections)
Charis Thompson, MAKING PARENTS: ONTOLOGICAL CHOREOGRAPHY (selections)
Sarah Franklin, DOLLY MATTERS or BORN AND MADE (selections)
Karen Barad, GETTING REAL: TECHNOSCIENTIFIC PRACTICES AND THE MATERIALIZATION OF REALITY
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Examinations and Assignments:
Regular seminar presentations; one mid-term essay; final paper |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This is an advanced seminar that integrates theoretically sophisticated work in cultural and social studies of the sciences with philosophical reflections on language, meaning, and metaphor. Students trying to decide whether this course is right for them should realize that, while there are no specific prerequisites for the course, participants in the seminar are expected to bring some relevant background from science studies, cultural, social or feminist theory, OR philosophy of language and mind. Such background is needed for students to take the requisite responsibility for presenting and discussing this material at an advanced level in a seminar format. |
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