BTT 520E - Selec.Topics in Sci.,Tec.&Soc.

Course Objectives

The course aims to introduce students to the main topics in social thought about the impact of science and technology in the human world. It will develop the analytical, critical and evaluative capacities of students through class participation, class presentations, and term papers.

Course Description

The course concentrates on social and political thought as applied to the impact of science and technology on society. Main topics include: the division of labour and technological development, the role of technology in defining the economic and political model of a society, modern production in relation to alienation and commodification, bureaucratisation of power and the decline of personal authority, the loss of tradition art and growth of mass media, mass culture and needs mediated by advertising, the technological conquest of sea and space as factors in state power, labour and work as forms of human activity dependent on technology, the development of medicine through changes in political and institutional power, theoretical science and human experience, total administration and loss of individual needs, the impact of mass media and means-end rationality on the public sphere.