Cultures of Science and Technology

Science and technology figure centrally in the economic, political, and socio-cultural changes that impact on our worlds. Happenings in the life sciences, including the discovery of new genes and genomic processes, pathways, and processes, are redrawing concepts of the body and human nature and re-figuring social and political relations. The seminar starts from the premise that scientific facts are made, not things existing a priori in the world and that are merely picked up by researchers and consumed by lay audiences. Likewise, technologies are created through a process of intense negotiation between producers and their sophisticated users. Focusing on the biological, clinical, and laboratory sciences, we explore the production of science and technical knowledge and how they 1) affect individuals, self-identities, subjectivity, kinship, and social relationships; 2) have historically interacted with or reinforced political programs, racial classifications, unequal access to knowledge, and patterns of social injustice; 3) inform contemporary institutional structures, strategies of governance, and practices of citizenship. We will combine methods and perspectives from social and cultural anthropology, the philosophy and history of science, and the social studies of science and technology, in addition to relying on historical case studies, ethnographies of science, scientific and medical journals, documentary films and media reports. This seminar has two basic aims: to probe research and theoretical works linked to the nature of discovery and innovation and the impact of science and technology in our worlds more generally, and to be a forum for discussing key related social scientific and ethical challenges.