The CSTMS community offers a wide range of courses in many departments, along with our own STS courses. Here is a selection of courses offered this Fall. If these look interesting to you, you will probably also like our PhD Designated Emphasis in Science & Technology Studies.
Undergraduate Coursework
For undergraduate courses, please visit the Townsend Center’s website for the Undergraduate Coursethread in Science and Society.
Graduate Coursework
Anthropology 219. Bodies, Moralities, Medical Ethics, and Humanitarian Reason
Wednesday, 10:00-12:00
Instructor: Nancy Scheper-Hughes
219 Kroeber Hall (Gifford Room)
This seminar for graduate students in medical anthropology, medical students in the UCSF-UCB joint medical program, and related disciplines. It is loosely linked to the ongoing moralities project led by Didier Fassin at the Institute for Advanced Study at IAS and at the EHSS. It is the graduate advanced version of Anthropology 119: Moralities, Bioethics and Human Rights. The seminar will examine the anthropology of moralities, ethical subjectivities, moral and political economies. It endeavors to bring together various currents, approaches and issues in this emerging subfield of anthropology-medical anthropology. We will explore genealogical and epistemological issues related to the fragile borders between the moral, the ethical, and the political, between ordinary ethics and professional medical ethics. Together, we will read, discuss, and examine the work that morality and ethics do in response to life crisis events – sexuality, reproduction, birth, nurturing, illness, disability, addiction, epidemics, disasters, political conflagration, individual death and mass death. I have selected several new ethnographies that capture and chronicle the way ordinary people in extraordinary situations resolve moral quandaries during critical events. We will look at the emergence of the field of medical bioethics following medical experiments during the Holocaust and WW11 more generally. We will discuss current debates regarding : choice, coercion, the politics of care vs. indifference, the ethics of selfless love (Levinas) vs. the cultural politics of hatred and repugnance as these, too, are shaped by moral reason and ethical subjectivities ( The Holocaust, apartheid South Africa, the Dirty War). What are the moral and ethical ideals to which people at different times, places, political situations and professions aspire? Are there any global or universal ethical principles? Under what circumstances do they arise? How do religious beliefs enter and impact ethical and moral reasoning? We will end with Didier Fassin’s potent critique of humanitarian reason.
Anthropology 250X. Anthropology of the Contemporary
Friday, 2:00-5:00
Instructor: Paul Rabinow
221 Kroeber Hall
Anthropology 250X. Science and Power
Wednesday, 10:00-12:00
Instructor: Laura Nader
180 Barrows
This seminar is about science and power. The readings cover both ethno-science and techno-science in order to raise questions about the production of scientific knowledge. The key assumption is that science is not autonomous, rather linked to social and cultural organizations. It is also not bounded, e.g., the sole product of a geographic area. The complex threads of debates over science need a more global and historical context and in order to enrich our understanding a more inclusive approach. An anthropological contribution to these debates requires a relocation and a future rethinking of the future of Western science. Traditions, such as the myth of Western superiority, are shrinking.
STS 200 (also History 280S.002) Introduction to Science and Technology Studies
Tuesday 12:00-3:00
Instructor: Massimo Mazzotti
3104 Dwinelle Hall
Office Hours: Thursday 2:00-3:00
mazzotti@berkeley.edu
This course is designed to provide a rigorous foundation in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). It will reconstruct the emergence of the major themes and issues in the field, and offer an overview of leading theories and research methodologies. Students will explore the relationship between science, technology, culture, and politics through exemplary case-studies from different periods and contexts. Attention will focus on the tension between expertise and democracy, and on the ways in which new scientific and political futures are produced. The course will equip graduate students with theoretical and practical tools for analyzing complex problems at the science, technology, and society interface.
This course will function as the required core course for the Designated Emphasis in Science and Technology Studies (STS).
History 280/285H. Africa: Material Culture
Tuesday, 2:00-4:00
Instructor: Abena Osseo-Asare
115 Barrows Hall
Fabric is at the heart of cultural production in African spaces. From birth, to initiations, to weddings, to funerals, fabric binds together communities, adorning families, and providing the basis for personal wealth. This course explores emerging research on the social history of textiles and clothing, with special reference to cases in Africa and comparative work in South Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. It seeks to integrate this work with ongoing debates in the field of science and technology studies on innovation, and technology transfer and appropriation. Through the lens of fabric, we will examine the meanings of diaspora, empire, modernity, post-colonialism and globalization for everyday people. Case material addresses the history behind fibers, dyes, weaving, and construction techniques, as well as issues of industrialization, intellectual property rights, sustainability, and workplace health. Course participants will also learn to ìreadî fabrics, clothing, and textile technologies for historical information through museum and field visits.
Information 290. Multimedia Narrative for Professional Practice and Field Research
Prof. Nancy Van House
School of Information
TuTh 11-12:30
205 South Hall
CCN: 42623
This course is concerned with collecting, interpreting, editing, summarizing, and presenting visual and audio media. Specifically:
- Collecting field data via still images, video, and/or audio
- Interpreting, editing, summarizing these
- Creating summaries for oneself and for others
- Creating multimedia presentations (not necessarily from field data — e.g., prototype videos — but mostly from the media that you have made and now need to compile into a short, effective presentation)
We will address both the practical and intellectual issues of making and using such media. We’ll do a lot of hands-on work with photography, video, and audio recording and editing.
This class is appropriate both for researchers (e.g., PhD students doing qualitative research) and professionals (e.g., people doing UX research and design or making and presenting media as part of other professional practice).
Visual and other media are central to professional practice and research in many fields. Data collection, reports and presentations, face-to-face and distant, online and off, often rely heavily on video, audio, and photography.
Because we are a media-literate society, with accessible hardware and software plus easy online distribution, it seems that everyone “knows” how to make and critique such media. However, our knowledge about how to effectively make, use, and present these media trails far behind our ability to create hours and gigabytes of content. Anyone can make media but how to do it well? An what does it mean to do it well?
In this seminar, we will address both theoretical and practical issues of capturing and creating narratives with video, audio, and photography. We will draw on photojournalism, visual narrative, visual anthropology, visual studies, and related areas. We will get hands-on experience creating and editing our own media, while we reflect on them with the help of theoreticians and scholars in relevant areas. We will also consider how accessible media production and presentation are changing professional and research practice.
This course is relevant to students in professional schools and to doctoral students interested in and qualitative research, including user experience research; technology designers who produce video scenarios and concept videos; and anyone concerned with collecting and presenting information via multiple media. It is particularly suitable for people doing field work, using audio, video, and still images to record and summarize their research.
No prior experience is necessary, but students already grappling with visual (and audio) media will find this course especially useful. We will use entry- and intermediate-level hardware and software; even smart phones and cheap cameras are now capable of producing good-quality output. Students who already have experience in these areas should find much in this course that is useful.
Public Health 203A. Theories of Health and Social Behavior
Thursday, 2:00-5:00
Instructor: Seth Holmes
240 Mulford Hall