Kursinformation

This English language class will interrogate the widely-held belief in the power of technology to modernize and thereby improve our lives. Most of us have grown up with the idea that technology will make things better. Buzzwords such as “faster”, “more accurate”, “more efficient”, “safer”, “healthier”, “more democratic”, “environmentally safe”, “digitally secure”, “more predictable” and “up-to-date” and so on have dominated popular conceptions, mass and social media and political spheres – but also the fields of natural science and engineering. Although criticisms of the effects of technologies exist, the very need and drive for technological development is rarely questioned. This course will examine this modernization narrative, as it concerns technological “improvements”, by drawing on social scientific discussions and critiques of it. Already at the turn of the 20^th century Durkheim and Weber were worried about the future of technology for the well-being of society. In the last decades, social scientists adopting a Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspective have developed approaches and methods for studying technology as a social artefact in its social and practice-based context. Such approaches can tell us a different story about how people and technology interact, and how, if at all, our lives have changed, whether for the better or for the worse. At the end of the class, students will be equipped with introductory tools for examining and critiquing assumptions concerning technologies and techno-scientific projects.