233030 VO Knowledge and Technology Cultures (2026S)

In this lecture and the accompanying discussion class (which needs to be registered separately, 233031 KO), we will develop an overview of work engaging with 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 artefacts.
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 how much our contemporary societies depend on technological infrastructures; and we will trace the ways in which techno-science has become part of our everyday cultures, and how both scientific and technological change affect some of the most basic categories of our living in the world. Lectures will cover the relations between science, technology and society in a broad range of fields.