230142 VO Knowledge and Technology Cultures: Central Issues, Questions and Concepts (2015S)

In this lecture and the accompanying discussion class (No. 230143), we will develop an overview of work developing two central tenets of STS research: (1) That both scientific knowledge and technologies are developed in social and cultural contexts, and that these contexts impinge on the form and political implications of the respective knowledge and technological artifacts. (2) That scientific knowledge and technologies are both an integral part of our cultures and strongly shape them - we indeed live in technological cultures and in knowledge societies. To cover this broad field, the semester will be a journey through quite different topics and to many different places, from the arcane citadels of contemporary research to the mundane everyday use of technologies. We will engage with laboratory studies and newer approaches to analyze scientific knowledge production, particularly in the changing institutional landscapes of today; we will scrutinize how technological innovations are brought into being, and who is involved in this; we will interrogate the role and place of scientific knowledge in contemporary high politics, but also everyday life, and ask for its relation to other forms of knowledge; and we will attempt to trace the ways in which technologies are part of our cultures, in the everyday and in a more political sense of the term.