Universität Wien
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233020 VO Science, Technology, Society (STS): Key Questions and Concepts (2025W)

4.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 23 - Soziologie
Moodle
Th 02.10. 09:15-11:15 Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).
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Details

max. 60 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

    Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

    • Tuesday 07.10. 14:30 - 16:30 Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien
    • Tuesday 21.10. 14:30 - 16:30 Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien
    • Thursday 23.10. 09:15 - 11:15 Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien
    • Thursday 06.11. 09:15 - 11:15 Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien
    • Tuesday 11.11. 14:30 - 16:30 Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien
    • Tuesday 25.11. 14:30 - 16:30 Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien
    • Thursday 27.11. 09:15 - 11:15 Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien
    • Thursday 08.01. 09:15 - 11:15 Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien
    • Tuesday 13.01. 14:30 - 16:30 Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien

    Information

    Aims, contents and method of the course

    The aim of this lecture is to give students an overview of the basic questions and key issues at the core of the study of the relations of science, technology and society. Throughout the lecture you will be introduced to important approaches and concepts that can be used to address these questions/issues.
    We will address the following issues:
    - We will start by asking questions concerning the special status of scientific knowledge and explore what it means to understand science as a specific set of practices, performed in specific places and guided by social processes; this will also lead us to ask for the social organisation of science and its core values.
    - We will then move to the area of technologies and investigate how we understand the emergence of new technologies, what societal values are inscribed into them, and how they change and structure our ways of living in contemporary societies. We will specifically also investigate standardization and classification as one powerful way of ordering the world.
    - We will then move on to study how futures and pasts are related in embedding technologies into contemporary societies and study the challenges of controversies, risks and disasters.
    - Finally, we will look into science-society relations, the governance of science and technology, and how citizens can participate in technoscientific societies.

    Assessment and permitted materials

    The final grade will be based on an oral exam.

    Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

    The examination for the lecture will be graded on a scale of 1 to 5.

    Examination topics

    Learning materials for the exam are the oral lectures given, the pdfs of the slides available on the e-learning platform as well as the texts you had to read. So even if you only take the lecture class and not together with the discussion class, you have to do the reading for the exam!
    A list of exam questions will be provided.

    Reading list

    Association in the course directory

    MA HPS: M 1.1, M 1.2, M 1.3

    Last modified: Fr 27.06.2025 00:02