Course Catalogue

SC/STS 1411 3.0: Introduction to Science, Technology and Society

This course helps students think critically about the connections between science, technology and society through case studies. Students will learn how to identify how human factors shape how science is conducted and used, and how technologies are developed and received. Through hands-on activities, students will explore the diversity of materials, settings and people involved in the making of science and technology, as well as understand the impact of science and technology on society. Case studies may include global climate change, food production, the digital landscape, pseudoscience, and biotechnology.

SC/STS 2010 3.0 : History of Modern Science

This course explores some of the central issues and theories in the history of physical and life sciences since the Renaissance. The focus is on the institutional trends and changing conceptual frameworks as they related to larger societal change.

SC/STS 2110 3.0: Truth, Theory and Superstition

There are diverse views on how to improve one's understanding of research, even in the case of established natural or social sciences. This course investigates theories of scientific methodology that illustrate the conflict between truth and superstition.

SC/STS 2210 3.0: Technology in the Modern World

This course examines the critical interconnections among technology, politics, culture, the arts, the sciences and social life. Specific topics will vary from year to year, covering social and historical contexts that may include Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia between 1500 and the present.

SC/STS 2222 3.0: Exploring Gender in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

Gender is one of the most powerful shapers of human societies. How does it affect, and how is it affected by, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)? This course explores the relationship between STEM based disciplines and gender. It examines how concepts of gender shape STEM based institutions, practices, and culture and it investigates how STEM research has shaped historical and current understandings of gender. Selected topics include: theories of gender and techno-science, gendered representations of science and technology in popular media, gender imbalance in STEM, and the gendering of military, medical, domestic, and digital technologies.

SC/STS 2333 3.0: Science, Technology and Racial Social Justice

This course examines the ways in which STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) have been used to perpetuate and justify racial inequalities and social injustice in past and present-day societies. By examining “architectures of inequality” in the fields of biology, engineering and computing, we will explore case studies which highlight how scientific research, technological innovations and engineering structures shape (and are shaped by) historical and current understandings of race. We will also examine how STEM research has been used to undermine attempts in the fight for racial justice and equality and conversely, how recent analyses of STEM and race have been used to improve methods of research and innovation in combatting racial and ethnic bias in our modern world.

SC/STS 2411 3.0: Exploring Science, Technology and Society

This course explores some of the relationships between science, technology and society using ideas from the history, philosophy and social studies of science. Through case studies this course investigates how knowledge about science and technology develops, and how it is interpreted and used by experts and the public.

SC/STS 3400 3.0: Thinking With Things

This course examines principles and techniques used in evaluating the material culture of science and technology to explore connections to ideas, practices, and values of a particular era. Students apply methods of analysis to understand material culture in context.

SC/STS 3500 3.0: The Global Information Society

This course explores the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in today’s global society. We will spend the semester examining three critical questions about our current information age including: Are ICTs the key to solving our world’s current social problems? Does prolonged internet use change the way we think and process information? Should we expect any kind of individual privacy with the increased use of ICTs in today’s world?’

SC/STS 3600 3.0: Technological Failure

This course challenges our common understandings of why technologies fail. Using approaches drawn from history, sociology and philosophy of technology, it critically examines the complex relationships between human action, the social contexts of knowledge and the proper functioning of machines.

SC/STS 3725 3.0: Science and Exploration

Systems of knowledge and technologies utilized in scientific exploration are investigated within the socio-political context of borderlands, colonialism and modern progress.

SC/STS 3726 3.0: Technology, Experts and Society

A critical examination of the introduction and adoption of new technologies and the rise of expert knowledge. Specific historical examples of modern technologies will be considered in order to explore the relationship between society and technology.

SC/STS 3730 3.0: Science, Technology and Modern Warfare

This course explores the interplay between warfare, scientific development, and technological change in a broad societal context through a series of representative case-studies from the past and the present. Enhances students' understanding of some of the main forces that shape our world.

SC/STS 3740 3.0: How Darwinism Developed: A History of Evolutionary Biology

This history of biology course studies the emergence of Darwinism and its technical details. It looks at its century-long effects in different fields from biology to urban design, and in societies such as Canada, First Nations in Canada, and China.

SC/STS 3750 3.0: Genomics and Society

This course examines how different social groups discover, interpret, and use genomic information. It also considers the social and ethical impacts of related biotechnology such as Direct-to-Consumer genetic testing, CRISPR, DNA barcoding, synthetic biology, and agricultural biotechnology.

SC/STS 3755 3.0: Emergence of Cosmology as Science

This course is a social, philosophical and intellectual study of cosmology from Newtonian times to the present. The focus is on the nature of astronomical and physical evidence and the convergence of theoretical physics with astronomy in the late 20th century.

SC/STS 3760 3.0: Nature, Knowledge and New Worlds, 1500-1800

An in-depth examination of the cultural, social, technological and intellectual context of a formative period in the history of modern science. Course credit exclusions: AP/HUMA 3760 6.00 (prior to Winter 2014), SC/STS 3760 6.00.

SC/STS 3770 3.0: Issues in the Modern Physical Sciences

An analysis of the nature of the physical sciences in the twenty-first century. A series of case studies drawn from astronomy, chemistry, physics and the earth sciences are examined in terms of scientific argument, organization, funding, communications and social implications.

SC/STS 3775 3.0: Physics in the 20th Century

This course examines both the philosophical questions raised by historical developments in modern physics and historical-scientific questions raised by philosophical inquiry. Note: No background in physics required. Readings include scientific, historical and philosophical texts.

SC/STS 3780 3.0: Biomedicine and Society

An examination of the changing nature of biomedical research, concepts, and practices from the 1800s to present day. Topics for socio historical analysis include: public health, physiology, microbiology, risk factors, diagnostic technologies, drug development and policy, immunology, and genetic medicine.

SC/STS 3790 3.0: Science and Technology in Global Development

This course examines a multiplicity of historical and cultural factors influencing and shaping scientific norms and technological practices in global development. Moreover, this course seeks to address questions on how global development goals are affecting the utilization of planetary resources and the advancement of technological systems of production. One of the predominant objectives of this course is to elucidate the entanglements between science, technology and global development, and unpack further what global development means in the context of international cooperation and international security.

SC/STS 4090 3.0: Science in the Wild

This course is a hands-on introduction to the anthropological study of science-in-the-making. Students develop practical skills in qualitative ethnographic methods by conducting interviews with practicing scientists and observing laboratory research. Through weekly readings and fieldwork assignments, students develop a broad understanding of scientific practice. By analyzing their own field notes and interview transcripts, students work towards producing an ethnographic account of laboratory life.

SC/STS 4501 6.0: Capstone: Science, Technology and Society Seminar

In this capstone seminar students build independent research skills as they examine relationships between science, technology and society using theory and methods from the history, philosophy and/or social studies of science. Students identify a contemporary or historical topic of interest, develop and execute a project plan in consultation with the course director, and communicate their progress and findings in a collaborative seminar setting.

SC/STS 4650 3.0: Science and Romanticism

This course explores the interactions of science and Romanticism that emerged between 1770 and 1830 and which resonate into the present. Topics include: origins of environmentalism; holistic explanations and critiques of mechanism; emergence of new sciences and the origins and growth of the research university.

SC/STS 4655 3.0: From the Ark to the Anthropocene

This course examines episodes in the history of the geo-sciences and environmental sciences from the seventeenth century to the present. Topics range from: chronologies of the earth; Enlightenment theories of the earth; fossils, extinction and the origins of paleontology; mining and its relations to the geosciences; the development of plate tectonics; meteor impact theory; ideas of the Anthropocene. The course emphasizes the connections between scientific, philosophical, technological and social change.

SC/STS 4780 3.0: Epidemics in the Modern World

This course explores the changing interaction between epidemic disease, governance and scientific knowledge since the 19th century. Widespread infections, pathological outbreaks and emerging diseases are examined at the local, national and global levels as both historical agents and as social constructs.

SC/STS 4785 3.0: Science, Health and Food

An examination of how knowledge is generated and validated in health and food sectors through analysis of studies, statistics, publications, evidence-based medicine, government regulation and policy in Canada, the USA and the EU. Case studies will detail controversial issues.