Courses of Study 2013-2014 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Descriptions
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SPAN—Spanish |
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SPAN 6260 - Nation, Market, and Poetry: Literature and Cultural Change in Latin America
Spring. 4 credits.
Co-meets with SPAN 4260 .
G. Guerrero.
This seminar is devoted to analyze and discuss some of the most recent changes that took place in the cultural field in Latin America during recent years. As the title suggests, we will pay a particular attention to three specific problems: the exacerbation of the conflicting relation between literature and the nation, the multiple effects of neoliberal market management in the book industry and the literary production, and the crisis of the poetic paradigm as the highest standard of artistic and literary creation.
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SPAN 6300 - Reading for Grads
Fall. 3 credits.
Enrollment limited to: graduate students.
J. Routier-Pucci.
Designed for those with little or no background in Spanish and little exposure to written Spanish. Aims primarily to develop skill in reading Spanish. Covers grammar basics, extensive vocabulary, and strategies for reading in a foreign language. The choice of texts depend on the interests of the students.
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SPAN 6390 - Special Topics in Spanish Literature
Fall. 2-4 credits, variable.
Staff.
Guided independent study of specific topics. For graduate students interested in special problems not covered in courses.
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SPAN 6400 - Special Topics in Spanish Literature
Spring. 2-4 credits, variable.
Staff.
Guided independent study for graduate students. For graduates interested in special problems not covered in courses.
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SPAN 6500 - [Literature of the Conquest] (crosslisted)
(also LATA 6500 )
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with LATA 4500 /SPAN 4500 . Conducted in Spanish.
M. A. Garcés.
Examines the cultural and psychological impact of the “Discovery” on the literatures of the Old and the New World. In a voyage that takes us from the Caribbean to the mesetas of Ancient Mexico and the Andean regions of South America, we will explore the formation of various discourses on the New World through a close reading of 16th and 17th century European and Amerindian texts. Particular attention will be paid to the formation of an “American discourse” in the literary subjects who launched a counteroffensive against the political views of the colonizers. Reading selections may be drawn from Columbus, Cabeza de Vaca, Bartolomé de las Casas, Hernán Cortes, Bernal Díaz, Aztec and Maya Testimonies on the Conquest, Michel de Montaigne, Pedero Cieza de Leon, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Guaman Poma, and Alonso de Ercilla among others.
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SPAN 6540 - Cervantes Mediterranean
Fall. 4 credits.
Conducted in Spanish. This is the required course for all Spanish graduate students.
M. A. Garcés.
This seminar focuses on the Mediterranean in the age of Cervantes (1547-1616), a geographic and historical space envisioned by Braudel “not as a sea but as a succession of seas, not as a civilization but as a series of civilization superimposed one upon the other.” Characterized by its endless interactions and combats, continuity and rupture, the early modern Mediterranean was also distinquished by coexistence, cultural exchanges, and mediation among the men and women caught in those conflicts. As a soldier and captive in the wars between the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, Cervantes left us a vital testimony of this tumultuous period. We will explore the impact of his captivity in Algiers (1575-1580) in both his dramatic and novelistic production. This traumatic experience constitutes a vortex or whirlwind in the nucleus of his great literary invention. In a voyage that will take us from Algiers, in North Africa, to Sicily, Cyprus and Constantinople, we will study Cervantes’s relations with Muslims and “renegades” – Christian converts to Islam –, his representation of the shifting identities of these personages, as well as his depiction of the peoples, cultures, and religions that mutually contaminated and confronted each other across the Mediterranean. The idea that survivors of traumatic events must tell their stories in order to continue living – a concept derived from psychoanalysis – explains in a compelling manner the profusion of stories by Cervantes that turn insistently around his Algerian captivity. Our readings include plays and novellas by Cervantes, chronicles by Antonio de Sosa, and texts by Braudel, Cathy Caruth, J. Daklhia, Derrida, Lacan, Dori Laub, Primo Levi, Robert J. Lifton, and Jaime Monrique, among others.
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SPAN 6560 - [The Cross and the Crescent in Iberia]
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Conducted in Spanish.
M. A. Garcés.
This course concentrates on the twin themes of cultural frontiers and exchanges in the early modern Mediterranean, where the writer Miguel de Cervantes played an important role as a soldier and captive. We will explore contacts between Muslims and Christians in texts produced after the conquest of Granada in 1492, as well as in later Iberian works centered on Algiers, Sicily, Cyprus, and Constantinople in the 16th and 17th centuries. Particular attention will be paid to the dynamic improvisation of identities who converted to Islam and fled to Ottoman territories. Course readings will include Spanish reports of captivity and plays, novels, and eyewitness accounts of life in Granada, Algiers, and Constantinople by Busbecq, Calderón, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Diego Galán, Nuñez-Muley, Pérez de Hita, and Antonio de Sosa, among others. Course selections will be supplemented with an ample range of critical approaches.
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SPAN 6690 - [Space, Place, and Narrative in Medieval and Early Modern Spain] (crosslisted)
(also MEDVL 6690 )
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. This is the required graduate seminar for Spanish graduate students. Conducted in Spanish.
S. Pinet.
This graduate seminar will explore configurations of space and place in different narrative genres of the Spanish middle ages and the renaissance. Topics to be addressed include didacticism, empire, local/global, frontier, loci, urbs/orbe; through cartography, cartographic writing, human geography and the production of space/place within genres such as epic, lyric, hagiography, picaresque, novel and drama. Theoretical texts that will inform these readings will include Michel de Certeau, David Woodward, Henri Lefebyre, Yi-Fu Tuan, Ed Casey, David Harvey, Denis Cosgrove.
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SPAN 6700 - [Film, Photography, Literature Visualizing Contemporary Spain]
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with SPAN 4700 . Conducted in Spanish.
P. Keller.
Designed to explore different visual representations of contemporary Spain through the threefold lens of cinematic, photographic, and literary perspectives. Surveying various texts from the early 20th century to the present-Lorca, Buñuel, Tusquets, Saura, Fontcuberta, Espaliú, Martínez de Pisón, García Rodero, to name a few-the course explores the continuities and discontinuities in visualizing Spain’s cultural landscapes and seeks to examine the relationship between the moving image, the still one, and the written word in and among those visualizations. Readings, writing assignments, and class discussion are all conducted in Spanish.
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SPAN 6820 - [The Architecture of Desire - Luis Bunnuel and Film Theory]
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Conducted in Spanish.
P. Keller.
An advanced graduate course that explores the films of renowned auteur Luis Buñuel in conjunction with different theories of film, aesthetics, and politics. Tracing his work from the inception of surrealism to the final stage of his career in the late 1970s, the course proposes an in-depth study of the Bruñuelian canon, placing his work in dialogue with contemporary debates, and sexuality. In addition to scholarship on Buñuel, we will read works by Kracauer, Deleuze, Tarkovsky, Theweleit, Ranciere, Mulvey, Eisensten, Foucault, and Kizek.
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SPAN 6830 - Post-Totalitarian Spanish Fiction
Spring. 4 credits.
Conducted in Spanish. This is the required course for all Spanish graduate students.
P. Keller.
In the era of “posts” (post-cold war, post-modernism, post-secularism, post-hegemony, post-photograpy, etc.), how are we to think the contemporary? For some critics, rethinking the “post” hinges on a re-conception of the end itself – “ends of history” and the “death of the author.” For others, it may entail thinking through belatedness, latency, and afterness as key frameworks that shape the present condition of criticism and artistic possibility. This seminar explores those ideas in the relation to the particularities of 20th century Spanish politics and culture and the canonical works of literature written under the conditions of totalitarianism. Focusing primarily on post-war period (1940s) to the present we will explore representations of Spains’ gradual emergence from the reigns of fascism to its complicated transition to democracy. To complement literary texts, we will read theoretical works on ideology and state terror, fascist optics, theories of apparatus, and theories of exception, emergence, afterness, and spectrality.
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SPAN 6850 - [Apocalyptic Writing in Latin America]
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Conducted in Spanish.
E. Paz-Soldán.
In the last decades, Latin American literature has produced some masterpieces of (post)apocalyptic narrative, from Mario Vargas Llosa’s La guerra del fin del mundo to Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. In this seminar we will explore the literary, religious, and historical underpinnings of this subgenre, going back to the Book of Revelations, and analyze the reasons behind its current popularity. We will also take on the fundamental paradigm of civilization/barbarism, which has been a key feature of Latin American writing since the nineteenth century. Some of the authors to be discussed, apart from the ones already mentioned, are Castellanos Moya, Fogwill, and Oesterheld.
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SPAN 6860 - [After Borges: Literature, Politics, and the Aesthetic Act]
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Conducted in Spanish.
B. Bosteels.
A critical study of Jorge Luis Borges’s writings, his politics and his ideology, in the context of earlier and later works by Lugones, Macedonio Fernandez, Bioy Casare, Silvina Ocampo, Valenzuela, and Piglia. Textual analysis will alternate with theoretical and philosophical debates, visual artwork, and movies inspired by work of Borges.
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STS—Science & Technology Studies |
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STS 1101 - Science, Technology, and Politics
(SBA-AS)
Spring. 3 credits.
Recommended as introduction to field; not required and may not be used to fulfill a major requirement. STS 1101 and STS 1102 may be taken separately or in any order.
R. Prentice.
From global warming to surveillance of citizens to health-care reform, issues in science, technology, and medicine also are political issues. This course uses contemporary scientific controversies to explore the intersections of science and politics. Issues explored may include the role of the military and private sector in funding research, the politics of experts and expertise, computer privacy and national security, and environmental politics.
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STS 1102 - [Histories of the Future] (crosslisted)
(also HIST 1620 ) (CA-AS)
Spring. 3 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Recommended as introduction to field; not required and may not be used to fulfill a major requirement. STS 1101 and 1102 may be taken separately or in any order.
S. Seth.
From Frankenstein to The Matrix, science fiction and film have depicted contemporary science, technology, and medicine for almost two centuries. This course introduces students to historical and social studies of science and technology using science-fiction films and novels, as well as key readings in science and technology studies. What social questions can fictional accounts raise that factual ones can only anticipate? How have “intelligent machines” from Babbage’s Analytical Engine to Hal raised questions about what it means to be human? What can Marvel Comics teach us about changes in science and technology? When can robots be women and, in general, what roles did gender play in scientific, technological, and medical stories? How was the discovery that one could look inside the human body received? How do dreams and nightmares of the future emerge from the everyday work of scientific and technological research?
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STS 1451 - Body, Mind, and Health: Historical Perspectives for Future Professionals
(HB) (CA-AS)
Summer. 3 credits.
Open to high school students.
J. Brumberg.
A course in the social history of medicine that examines the ways in which medicine and its practitioners have impacted-and been impacted by-American social, political, cultural, and economic development. The course focuses on the changing nature of disease, the medical profession past and present as well as historical and contemporary issues in pubic health. Films on different diseases and medical issues are shown twice weekly in the afternoons and there are daily morning discussion sections with teaching assistants to talk about reading and writing assignments. Students are evaluated on written assignments, participation in lectures and discussion sections, and performance on an in-class final.
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STS 1941 - The History of Science in Europe: From the Ancient Legacy to Isaac Newton (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 1941 , HIST 1941 )(HB) (HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
P. Dear.
For description, see HIST 1941 .
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STS 1942 - The History of Science in Europe: Newton to Darwin; Darwin to Einstein (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 1942 , HIST 1942 )(HB) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
P. Dear.
For description, see HIST 1942 .
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STS 2011 - What Is Science? An Introduction to the Social Studies of Science and Technology (crosslisted)
(also SOC 2100 ) (CA-AS)
Fall. 3-4 credits, variable.
Students interested in the 4-credit Writing in the Majors option must get permission of instructor. Limited to 15 students.
P. Doing.
Introduces some of the central ideas in the field of S&TS. As well as serving as an introduction to students who plan to major in Biology and Society or in Science and Technology Studies, the course is aimed at students with backgrounds in either the sciences or the humanities who are challenged to think more critically about what we mean by science, what counts as scientific knowledge and why, and how science and technology intervene in the wider world. The course is a mixture of lecture, discussion, and other activities. The discussion sections are an integral part of the course and attendance is required. In addition, a series of written assignments throughout the semester and a take-home final during exam week compose the majority of the grade.
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STS 2051 - Ethical Issues in Health and Medicine (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 2051 ) (KCM-AS)
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
A University Course - this class highlights cross-disciplinary dialogue and debate.
S. Hilgartner.
For description, see BSOC 2051 .
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STS 2061 - Ethics and the Environment (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 2061 , PHIL 2460 ) (KCM-AS)
Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Open to all undergraduates; freshmen by permission of instructor. Limited to 90 students.
S. Pritchard.
For description, see BSOC 2061 .
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STS 2071 - Introduction to the History of Medicine (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 2071 , HIST 2710 )(HB) (HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
S. Seth.
This course offers an introductory survey of the history of medicine (principally in Europe and the United States) from classical antiquity to the early twentieth century. Using a combination of both primary and secondary sources, students will learn about the “Hippocratic Heritage” of contemporary western medicine; medicine in late antiquity; faith and healing in the medieval period; medicine and knowledge in the Islamic world; medicine during the Renaissance (particularly the rise of the mechanical philosophy); medicine in the age of Enlightenment; professionalization, women-doctors and midwives, and battles over ‘quackery’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the role of medicine in colonialism and empire; and the promises and perils of modern medicine (dramatic decreases in mortality on the one hand, the rise of Eugenics and the importance of Medicine to the National Socialist State on the other). As well as this temporal survey, we will consider a number of ongoing themes: race, bodily difference, and medicine; medicine and the environment; women, gender, and medicine; the history of the body; the history of sexuality; and the close connections between forms of social order and forms of medical knowledge. The course meets three times a week (for two lectures and a section) and is open to all.
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STS 2122 - [Darwin and the Making of Histories] (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 2122 , HIST 2122 ) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
P. Dear.
For description, see HIST 2122 .
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STS 2131 - Science Fiction (crosslisted)
(also COML 2035 , ENGL 2035 )(HB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
A. Banerjee.
For description, see COML 2035 .
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STS 2331 - Agriculture, History, and Society: From Squanto to Biotechnology (crosslisted)
(also AMST 2331 ) (HA-AS)
Fall. 3 credits.
M. Rossiter.
Surveys the major themes in the development of agriculture and agribusiness in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. These include particular individuals (e.g., Liberty Hyde Bailey, Luther Burbank, G. W. Carver, Henry A. Wallace, and Norman Borlaug), the rise of government support and institutions (including U.S.D.A. and Cornell), noteworthy events (the dust bowl, World War II, and the environmental movement), and the achievements of the Green and “Gene” Revolutions.
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STS 2468 - Medicine, Culture, and Society (crosslisted)
(also ANTHR 2468 , BSOC 2468 ) (CA-AS)
Fall. 3 credits.
L. Ramberg.
For description, see ANTHR 2468 .
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STS 2831 - Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (crosslisted)
(also PHIL 2810 ) (KCM-AS)
Fall. 3 credits.
J. North.
For description, see PHIL 2810 .
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STS 2851 - Communication, Environment, Science, and Health (crosslisted)
(also COMM 2850 )
Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.
Enrollment limited to: second-semester sophomore, junior, or senior standing.
B. Lewenstein, staff.
For description, see COMM 2850 .
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STS 2871 - Evolution (crosslisted)
(also BIOEE 2070 ) (PBS)
Fall, summer. 3 credits.
Intended for students with no background in college biology. Does not meet evolutionary biology requirements for biological sciences major. May not be taken for credit after BIOEE 1780 .
R. Harrison, G. Graffin.
For description and learning outcomes, see BIOEE 2070 .
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STS 3011 - Life Sciences and Society (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 3011 ) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
K. Vogel.
For description, see BSOC 3011 .
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STS 3020 - Science Writing for the Media (crosslisted)
(also COMM 3020 )
Fall. 3 credits.
Prerequisite: college-level writing course. Enrollment limited to: not open to freshman. Limited to 24 students.
B. Lewenstein, staff.
For description, see COMM 3020 .
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STS 3111 - Sociology of Medicine (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 3111 , DSOC 3111 , SOC 3130 ) (SBA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Not open to freshmen.
C. Leuenberger.
This course provides an introduction to the ways in which medical practice, the medical profession, and medical technology are embedded in society and culture. We will ask how medicine is connected to various sociocultural factors such as gender, social class, race, and administrative cultures. We will examine the rise of medical sociology as a discipline, the professionalization of medicine, and processes of medicalization and demedicalization. We will look at alternative medical practices and how they differ from and converge with the dominant medical paradigm. We will focus on the rise of medical technology in clinical practice with a special emphases on reproductive technologies. We will focus on the body as a site for medical knowledge, including the medicalization of sex differences, the effect of culture on nutrition, and eating disorders such as obesity and anorexia nervosa. We will also read various classic and contemporary texts that speak to the illness experience and the culture of surgeons, hospitals, and patients, and we will discuss various case studies in the social construction of physical and mental illness.
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STS 3181 - [Living in an Uncertain World: Science, Technology, and Risk] (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 3181 , HIST 3181 ) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Next offered 2014-2015.
S. Pritchard.
This course explores the history, sociology, and ethics of risk. In particular, we will focus on the complex and often ambiguous relationship between science, technology, and risk. A historical perspective shows how science and technology have generated risks while they have also played key roles in managing and solving those very risks. By examining several case studies, including 19th-century mining, the 1911 Triangle fire, nuclear science, the space shuttle disasters, asbestos litigation, Hurricane Katrina, and the contemporary financial crisis, we will consider how risk and ideas about risk have changed over time. By exploring different historical and cultural responses to risk, we will examine the sociopolitical dimensions of the definitions, perceptions, and management of risk both in the past and the present.
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STS 3241 - Environment, Society, and Land (crosslisted)
(also DSOC 3240 , SOC 3240 ) (SBA-AS)
Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.
K. W. Mauer.
For description, see DSOC 3240 .
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STS 3561 - Computing Cultures (crosslisted)
(also ANTHR 3061 , COMM 3560 , INFO 3561 , VISST 3560 ) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
No technical knowledge of computer use presumed or required.
R. Prentice.
Computers are powerful tools for working, playing, thinking, and living. Laptops, PDAs, webcams, cell phones, and iPods are not just devices, they also provide narratives, metaphors, and ways of seeing the world. This course critically examines how computing technology and society shape each other and how this plays out in our everyday lives. Identifies how computers, networks, and information technologies reproduce, reinforce, and rework existing cultural trends, norms, and values. Looks at the values embodied in the cultures of computing and considers alternative ways to imagine, build, and work with information technologies.
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STS 3601 - Ethical Issues in Engineering Practice (crosslisted)
(also ECE 3600 , ENGRG 3600 )
Spring. 3 credits.
Enrollment is open to sophomores.
P. Doing.
For description, see ENGRG 3600 .
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STS 3811 - Philosophy of Science (crosslisted)
(also PHIL 3810 ) (KCM-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
R. Boyd.
For description, see PHIL 3810 .
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STS 3991 - Undergraduate Independent Study
Fall, spring. 1-6 credits, variable.
Permission of instructor required. No more than 8 credit hours total of independent study (not including honors) can count toward the STS major.
Staff.
More information and applications available in 306 Rockefeller Hall.
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STS 4071 - Law, Science, and Public Values (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4071 ) (SBA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
M. Lynch.
Examines problems that arise at the interface of law and science. These problems include the regulation of novel technology, the role of technical expertise in public decision making, and the control over scientific research. The first part of the course covers basic perspectives in S&TS and how they relate to legal decisions and processes. The second part covers a series of examples and legal cases on the role of expert judgments in legal and legislative settings, intellectual property considerations in science and medicine, and legal and political oversight of scientific research. The final part examines social processes and practices in legal institutions, and relates these to specific cases of scientific and technological controversy. Lectures and assignments are designed to acquaint students with relevant ideas about the relationship between legal, political, and scientific institutions, and to encourage independent thought and research about specific problems covered in the course.
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STS 4120 - Scientific Revolution in Early - Modern Europe (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4121 , HIST 4120 )(HB) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
P. Dear.
For description, see HIST 4120 .
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STS 4131 - [Comparative Environmental History] (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4131 , HIST 4131 ) (HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Next offered 2014-2015.
S. Pritchard.
One of the most troubling realizations of the 20th century has been the extent to which human activities have transformed the environment on a global scale. The rapid growth of human population and the acceleration of the global economy have meant that the 20th century, in environmental terms, has been unlike any other in world history. This course takes a comparative approach, examining crucial themes in the environmental history of the 20th-century world in different times, places, and ecologies.
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STS 4191 - Aftermaths: The Complexities of Disasters (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4191 , SHUM 4191 ) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
V. Choi.
These days it seems disasters and crisis characterize our contemporary moment. Disasters are not singular events; they have spiraling and lingering effects that touch upon many facets of life and global society. How do we attempt to understand them, as expansive as they are? How do scientific and institutionalized bodies attempt to manage and control disasters? This seminar explores these questions, by studying the aftermaths of disasters, through written ethnography, film, journalism, photography. We will discern the ways relationships of power are articulated in processes of disaster management. Lastly, through learning and writing about disasters, we will be forced to think about how to make sense of nature, death, destruction, and hope. How can we, in turn, learn to be sensitive readers, and concerned citizens and scholars?
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STS 4200 - Information Policy: Research, Analysis, and Design (crosslisted)
(also COMM 4201 , INFO 4200 )
Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.
Prerequisites: INFO 2040 , INFO 2921 , or INFO 3200 . Enrollment limited to: Undergraduate third-year standing or above; or graduate standing.
S. Jackson.
For description, see INFO 4200 .
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STS 4221 - [New York Women] (crosslisted)
(also FGSS 4220 ) (HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Limited to 15 students.
M. Rossiter.
Over the centuries New York State has been the site of activity for a great many women of consequence. This course is a one-semester survey of the past and present activities and contributions of rural and urban women in a variety of fields of interest to Cornell students: politics, medicine, science, the law, education, business (including hotels), entertainment, communications, government, labor, religion, athletics, the arts, and other areas. Weekly readings and discussion and a paper, possibly using local or university archives.
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STS 4231 - [Gender and Technology in Historical Perspectives] (crosslisted)
(also FGSS 4231 , HIST 4231 ) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Next offered 2015-2016.
S. Pritchard.
Why are some technologies such as cars and computers associated with men and masculinity? How did vacuums and sewing machines become gendered female? How do technological artifacts and systems constitute, mediate, and reproduce gender identities and gender relations? How do technologies uphold gender hierarchies and thus social inequalities? This class explores the relationship between gender and technology in comparative cultural, social, and historical perspective. Specific themes include meanings, camouflage, and display; socializations; industrialization, labor, and work; technologies of war; the postwar workplace; sex and sexuality; and reproductive technologies. Most course materials focus on Western Europe and the United States since the late 18th century, but the issues raised in this class will prepare students to think about the relationship between gender and technology in other contexts including our own.
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STS 4240 - Designing Technology for Social Impact (crosslisted)
(also INFO 4240 ) (CA-AS)
Fall. 3 credits.
Technical background is not needed for this course.
P. Sengers.
For description, see INFO 4240 .
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STS 4281 - Anticipation: Living in the Future (crosslisted)
(also SHUM 4281 ) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
V. Choi.
This course surveys contemporary environmental, medical, and social problems through the notion of “anticipation.” How does an anticipation of the future shape our understandings of specific social problems, speculations of these problems, and projected solutions to them? How are fear and uncertainty about the future mobilized to introduce projects of management and control? What other kinds of affects and emotions do anticipatory practices conjure in people? How are things such as “life” and “health” articulated and conceived of in and through anticipatory practices of medicalization and genomic science? We will look at practices of preparedness for natural disasters and terrorist attacks, speculations of climate change, and financial markets. How are society and subjectivities re-oriented in anticipating these impending futures?
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STS 4291 - [Politics of Science] (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4291 , GOVT 4293 ) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
R. Herring.
For description, see GOVT 4293 .
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STS 4301 - [Social Studies of Space, Technologies and Borders]
(CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
C. Leuenberger-Pinch.
In this course we will discuss how society, culture and politics shape technological artifacts and the natural and built environment, such as bridges, roads, and landscapes in diverse cultural contexts. We will examine reasons for the rise in bordering mechanisms - ranging from walls, barriers to fences within cities as well as along national borders, in such countries such as Ireland, Korea, Germany, the US, and Israel. We will compare how such ‘strategies of exclusion’ impact local communities, transnational relations and social connectivity across such divides. We will also examine how the growth of gated communities has reconfigured urban spaces and given rise to new forms of spatial and social segregation.
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STS 4311 - From Surgery to Simulation (crosslisted)
(also ANTHR 4311 , BSOC 4311 ) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
R. Prentice.
A cliche among medical professionals says, “If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” In other words, treatment decisions often are dictated by available technologies. This course looks at medical technologies from dissection to X-rays to antidepressants and the ways they shape how medical professionals look at and practice upon the human body. Takes a broad view of technology, encompassing systems of practice that shape how work is conducted and the body is understood, as well as specific machines and treatments with specific uses. Considers how these technologies often are not only treatments for individual patients but also metaphors for larger cultural questions.
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STS 4321 - Lives of Scientists and Engineers
(HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
M. Rossiter.
This course will explore the lives of a variety of scientists and engineers-American, international, men, women, and minorities-through readings of biographies, autobiographies, and other sources. The goal will be to examine the obstacles overcome, opportunities offered, and choices made; the reasons and rationalization given; and the uses made of idealized biographies in science education, requirement, myth-making, and national prestige. Weekly readings, discussion, and research paper required.
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STS 4331 - Global History of Science and Technology
(HB) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
M. Rossiter.
Survey of the major scientific events and institutions in several foreign nations, including developing countries. Covers the period 1660 to the present and gives some attention to who in each country becomes a scientist, who rises to the top, and who emigrates. Weekly readings and a research paper.
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STS 4352 - Medieval Cosmologies: Text, Image, and Music (crosslisted)
(also ARTH 4352 , CLASS 4753 , MEDVL 4352 , MUSIC 4352 , NES 4352 , RELST 4352 , VISST 4352 )(HB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Undergraduates by permission only. Co-meets with ARTH 6352 /CLASS 7753 /MEDVL 6352 /NES 6352 /RELST 6352 /STS 6352 .
B. Anderson, A. Hicks.
For description, see ARTH 4352 .
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STS 4371 - Geography of Human Genes and Social Identities Since the Ice Age (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4371 )
Summer. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
No prior science courses are necessary and students of all backgrounds will be respected and encouraged to discuss and debate the topics in the course.
A. Waters.
Human genetics allows us to track the migration of human populations over the last 40,000 years. With new genetic sequencing technology, we can identify how human genes were transferred from group to group after they came into contact. One of the more intriguing recent discoveries in the study of human genetics is that all living humans today share the same common ancestry less than 20,000 years ago (or 500 generations). In addition, the genetic profiles of human populations seem to correspond directly with specific geographical regions around the globe. Does the process of classifying individuals and groups based on genetic markers offer a more plausible alternative than the way we traditionally view ourselves and others? Are human genetic profiles at the population level more objective than how groups are identified on government forms and university applications and records? In addition to these questions, we will analyze the ethical, legal, political and policy implications of using genetic data in many diverse areas of contemporary life, such as in forensic analysis and law enforcement, medical practice, life-insurance policies and genetic counseling (“designer babies”).
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STS 4391 - The Science of Spying: S&TS in U.S. Intelligence (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4391 , GOVT 4897 ) (SBA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
K. Vogel.
Using historical and contemporary examples, the course will examine how science, technology, scientific expertise, and politics contribute to knowledge production in intelligence.
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STS 4441 - Historical Issues of Gender and Science (crosslisted)
(also FGSS 4440 ) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Not open to freshmen.
M. Rossiter.
A one-semester survey of women’s role in science and engineering from antiquity to the present, with special emphasis on the United States in the 20th century. Readings include biographies and autobiographies of prominent women scientists, educational writings and other primary sources, and recent historical and sociological studies. By the end of the semester, students attain a broad view of the problems that have faced women entering science and those that still remain.
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STS 4531 - [Knowledge and Society] (crosslisted)
(also SOC 4530 ) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Limited to 15 students.
C. Leuenberger.
What is real? How is one to know? In this course we explore these questions by focusing on the intersection between knowledge, society, culture, and politics. Knowledge is central to the organization of society. It not only constitutes everyday, common-sense, and indigenous practices, but also professional and scientific endeavors. We will discuss theoretical debates and empirical studies of how knowledge partakes in the construction and experience of reality, personhood, identity, interaction, religion, and the emotions, and how it builds and sustains the artistic, scientific, and technical professions.
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STS 4661 - [Public Communication of Science and Technology] (crosslisted)
(also COMM 4660 )
Spring. 3 credits.
Prerequisite: COMM 2850 , or COMM 3020 , ENGRC 3500 , or permission of instructor.
B. Lewenstein.
For description, see COMM 4660 .
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STS 4691 - Food, Agriculture, and Society (crosslisted)
(also BIOEE 4690 , BSOC 4691 ) (PBS)
Fall. 3 credits.
Prerequisite: introductory ecology course or permission of instructor. Limited to 20 students.
A. Power.
For description and learning outcomes, see BIOEE 4690 .
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STS 4711 - [The Dark Side of Biology: Biological Weapons, Bioterrorism, and Biocriminality] (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4711 , GOVT 4711 ) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Prerequisite: at least one course in STS and one semester of biology beyond introductory biology. Next offered 2014-2015.
K. Vogel.
For description, see BSOC 4711 .
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STS 4751 - [Science, Race, and Colonialism] (crosslisted)
(also HIST 4751 ) (HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
S. Seth.
This course is divided into three major thematic sections. The first looks at the history of racial thinking in the West. We begin with the existence (or not) of conceptions of biological race in the early- modern period, focusing on early voyages of discovery and so-called “first encounters” between the peoples of the Old and New Worlds. In the second part of the course we will look at early enunciations of racial thought in the late 18th century and at the problems of classification that these raised, before examining the roots of “Scientific Racism.” We close with a look at Darwin, Social Darwinism, and eugenics movements in different national contexts. The last third of the course looks at science and technology in colonial contexts, including “colonial technologies” (guns, steam- ships, and telegraphs) as well as medicine and public hygiene.
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STS 4811 - Topics in the Philosophy of Science (crosslisted)
(also PHIL 4810 ) (KCM-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Co-meets with PHIL 6810 /STS 6811 .
R. Boyd.
For description, see PHIL 4810 .
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STS 4951 - [Social Studies of the Human Sciences]
(CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
C. Leuenberger.
Explores how the human and social sciences have provided the knowledge and categories we use to make sense of human beings and their behavior. Looking across a range of disciplines-including sociology, anthropology, psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, and economics-we will look at how human beings have become objects of scientific investigation. We will focus on how culture, politics, and the professional environment impact the human sciences and how the use of rhetoric constitutes academic discourse. We will also focus on the social scientific construction of selves, sex, and gender.
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STS 4961 - [History of Medicine and Healing in China] (crosslisted)
(also ASIAN 4469 , BSOC 4961 , HIST 4961 )(GHB) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with HIST 6961 .
T.J. Hinrichs.
For description, see HIST 4961 .
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STS 4966 - [Science, Technology and Medicine: The Sonic Dimension] (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4966 , MUSIC 4466 , SOC 4970 )
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
T. Pinch.
We will discuss the different ways in which sound is embedded in the activities and practices of science, technology and medicine considered both contemporaneously and historically. We will examine different approaches which try to draw attention to sound by historicizing listening practices and key technologies such as the phonograph and stethoscope which have revolutionized technical fields. The overall goal of the course is to critically reflect on how sound offers a new way of understanding how humans, culture and society are entwined with and coproduced by science, technology and medicine.
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STS 4991 - Honors Project I (crosslisted)
(also ALS 4991 , BSOC 4991 , HE 4991 )
Fall, spring. (yearlong) 4 credits.
Senior S&TS students by permission of department; overall Cornell cumulative GPA of 3.00 and 3.30 cumulative GPA in courses taken for major required. Students must enroll for both the fall and spring semesters. BSOC 4991-BSOC 4992 is cross-listed with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences as ALS 4991-ALS 4992 and the College of Human Ecology as HE 4991-HE 4992 . HE students should enroll in HE 4991 for College of Human Ecology credit. Students who are admitted to the honors program are required to complete two semesters of honors project research and to write an honors thesis. The project must include substantial research, and the completed work should be of wider scope and greater originality than is normal for an upper-level course. The student must find a project supervisor and a second faculty member willing to serve as faculty reader; at least one of these must be a member of the Biology and Society faculty.
Staff.
For description, see BSOC 4991 .
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STS 4992 - Honors Project II (crosslisted)
(also ALS 4992 , BSOC 4992 , HE 4992 )
Fall, spring. (yearlong) 4 credits.
Senior S&TS students by permission of department; overall Cornell cumulative GPA of 3.00 and 3.30 cumulative GPA in courses taken for major. Apply in 306 Rockefeller Hall.
Staff.
For description, see BSOC 4992 .
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STS 6181 - Confluence: Environmental History and Science & Technology Studies (crosslisted)
(also HIST 6181 )
Spring. 4 credits.
S. Pritchard.
This course uses water to examine the confluence of two fields: environmental history and the social and historical studies of science and technology. Although preliminary scholarship has begun to demonstrate the fruitful integration of these fields, a number of methodological and theoretical tensions remain. Some of these tensions include the social construction of “nature,” nature as a historical actor, accounts of the emergence of “environmental” “problems,” constructivist models of science and technology, and scholars’ use of technoscientific sources to assess environmental change. This class, therefore, examines a number of scholarly debates about key terms, definitions, and categories (both historical actors’ and analysts’), knowledge-making about “nature” and human interactions with nonhuman nature, and the concept of agency. Weekly seminars are organized around readings in environmental history, science studies, and/or their intersection that explore these issues in diverse ways while usually addressing various aquatic environments in comparative historical and cultural perspective.
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STS 6241 - [Science, Technology, and International Security]
Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Next offered 2014-2015.
K. Vogel.
This course will examine the social shaping of science and technology and the production of technical knowledge as they relate to the development of conventional and unconventional weapons and their associated threats to U.S. and international security. Part of the course will be devoted to examining the various lay and expert communities that are involved in security debates. It will draw on literature from the science and technology studies field, constructivist perspectives in international relations, and technical security studies.
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STS 6251 - Visualization and Discourse in Science
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
M. Lynch.
This seminar covers two interrelated areas of science and technology studies: visualization and discourse. Visualization refers to the practices and technologies through which scientists and designers develop images, graphs, models, and other representations. Discourse refers, broadly, to practical uses of language. In the context of this course, discourse and visualization will be treated as important aspects of the production of scientific data and technological artifacts. The course will focus mainly on historical and ethnographic studies that pay close attention to the material practices and linguistic repertoires through which scientific and technological innovations are made visible, palpable, and intersubjectively accountable.
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STS 6261 - [Seminar in the History of Technology] (crosslisted)
(also HIST 6190 )
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
R. Kline.
A seminar on the historiography of technology in Europe and the U.S. from the 18th century to the present. Typical topics include the “industrial revolution” in Britain; military support of technological change; the “incorporation” of science and engineering; cultural myths of engineers and inventors; technology and colonialism; gender, labor, and users of technology; urbanization, “modernization,” and technology in rural life; post-war consumerism; science and technology in the cold war; and technology in the environment.
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STS 6301 - [Social Theory]
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
R. Prentice.
Sociologist C. Wright Mills challenged his readers to develop their “sociological imagination” to understand the social and historical forces at work in seemingly individual events, such as the receipt of a pink slip, a draft card, or a drug prescription. Within science and technology studies, scholars have documented how social issues can become scientific, technological, or medical, often appearing to leave the social realm naturalized, normalized, or pathologized. This course introduces graduate students to classic texts and concepts in social theory with a focus on how scholars apply such theories to empirical research. It will consider major thinkers and schools of social thought, such as Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Mannheim, Foucault, and the Frankfurt School. It will also consider how a nuanced interplay of theory and empirical data can bring critically important insights to both theoretical and empirical understandings of the world. The course is relevant for students in sociology, history, and anthropology who are interested in social theory.
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STS 6311 - Qualitative Research Methods for Studying Science (crosslisted)
(also SOC 6310 )
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
C. Leuenberger.
Much has been learned about the nature of science by sociologists and anthropologists donning lab coats and studying scientists in action. This course looks at the methods used in this new wave of science studies. Examines what can be learned by interviewing scientists, from videos, and from detailed examinations of scientific texts. Students gain hands-on experience by conducting a mini-project in which they investigate some aspect of scientific culture.
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STS 6321 - Inside Technology (crosslisted)
(also SOC 6320 )
Spring. 4 credits.
T. Pinch.
Rather than analyze the social impact of technology upon society, this course investigates how society gets inside technology. In other words, is it possible that the very design of technologies embody assumptions about the nature of society? And, if so, are alternative technologies, which embody different assumptions about society, possible? Do engineers have implicit theories about society? Is technology gendered? How can we understand the interaction of society and technology? Throughout the course the arguments are illustrated by detailed examinations of particular technologies, such as the ballistic missile, the bicycle, the electric car, and the refrigerator.
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STS 6331 - Anthropology of Biomedicine
Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
R. Prentice.
In recent decades, anthropologists have begun to treat biomedicine as ethnomedicine, opening up the cultural assumptions, differences, and contingencies underpinning biomedical science and practice. This course examines biomedicine as a global cultural system, treating human health as a shifting product of nature and culture. Among topics covered will be approaches to illness and suffering, biomedical epistemologies, theories of embodiment, medicalization, and new medical technologies.
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STS 6401 - [Science, Technology, Gender: Historical Issues] (crosslisted)
(also FGSS 6400 , HIST 6410 )
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
S. Seth.
This course explores five, often interrelated, aspects of the literature on gender, science, and technology: (1) The historical participation of women (and men) in scientific work; (2) the embodiment of scientific, medical, and technical knowledge; (3) the scientific construction of sexuality; (4) the gendering of technological systems and artifacts; and (5) feminist critiques of scientific knowledge. We b egin with an analysis of reason, gender, and sexuality in the classical and late-antique western world, before moving on to an examination of the origins of modern western science in the scientific revolution, considering the claim that “science,” by its very nature, is an androcentric enterprise. The rise of scientific and medical disciplines and professions in the 19th century will provide a focus for discussions of the systematic exclusion of women from the production of scientific knowledge at precisely the point that women’s bodies become the object of intensive scientific study. Drawing on a range of material, the course considers the construction of homosexual and intersexual individuals in scientific discourse. In later weeks, we will discuss so-called “postmodernist” critiques of science, and will debate the possibilities for “feminist science.”
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STS 6661 - Public Engagement in Science (crosslisted)
(also COMM 6660 )
Spring. 3 credits.
Offered even years.
B. Lewenstein.
For description, see COMM 6660 .
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STS 6671 - [Tools for Analyzing Energy and Society Module] (crosslisted)
(also CHEME 6673 , ECE 5510 )
Spring. 1 credit.
Prerequisite: CHEME 6660 . Offered alternate years.
P. A. Doing.
For description, see CHEME 6673 .
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STS 6751 - Science, Race, and Colonialism (crosslisted)
(also HIST 6751 )
Spring. 4 credits.
S. Seth.
Scholarly work in the last two decades has increasingly focused on the oft-neglected linkages between technology and science on the one hand and the discourses and practices of colonialism and imperialism on the other. Texts of broad conception like Michael Adas’ Machines as the Measure of Men and Gyan Prakash’s recent Another Reason have made an attempt to provide an overview of many of the issues involved, but the field awaits a genuinely synthetic treatment. This course will aim to provide the framework for such a treatment by looking at a number of key areas of current interest. The first half of the course begins with a survey of the history of ideas of race and the development of “race-sciences” in the 19th century, including a sampling of primary materials on Darwinian theories of race and later formulations of social Darwinism. The latter part of the course will explore a number of specific themes, including the importance of social statistics and technologies of identification (fingerprinting), medicine and hygiene, scientific nationalism and nationalist science, the periphery as laboratory, and gender, savagery, and criminality. Readings will comprise a mixture of primary and secondary sources, and students are encouraged to contribute topics and texts of particular interest.
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STS 6991 - Graduate Independent Study
Fall, spring. 1-4 credits, variable.
Permission of department required.
Staff.
Applications and information are available in 306 Rockefeller Hall.
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STS 7111 - Introduction to Science and Technology Studies (crosslisted)
(also HIST 7110 )
Fall. 4 credits.
P. Dear.
Provides students with a foundation in the field of science and technology studies. Using classic works as well as contemporary exemplars, seminar participants chart the terrain of this new field. Topics for discussion include, but are not limited to, historiography of science and technology and their relation to social studies of science and technology, laboratory studies, intellectual property, science and the state, the role of instruments, fieldwork, politics and technical knowledge, philosophy of science, sociological studies of science and technology, and popularization.
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STS 7201 - Studying Emerging Technologies
Fall. 4 credits.
S. Hilgartner.
This course will examine the peculiar speculative world of emerging technologies-a social and technical “space,” found at the edges of expanding technological systems, where new technologies are being most actively constructed and transformed. In this dynamic world, emerging technologies exist in a state of flux as a mixture of blueprint and hardware, plan and practice, the nearly on-line and the almost obsolete, surrounded by speculation and speculators, who make often-contested claims about their promises, perils, and possibilities. Among the characteristics of this space are: the frequent appearance of unverifiable claims about technologies that have yet to materialize; an entrepreneurial drive for commercial implementation; ongoing institutional innovation; frequent public controversies; and problems of political legitimacy. The course will examine the epistemic, discursive, institutional, and political dimensions of emerging technologies in an effort to understand the social worlds that shape technological change. Open to graduate students in the social sciences, sciences, and humanities.
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STSCI—Statistical Science |
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STSCI 2100 - Introductory Statistics (crosslisted)
(also ILRST 2100 ) (MQR)
Fall, spring, summer. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Forbidden Overlap: Students may receive credit for only one course in the following group: AEM 2100 , ENGRD 2700 , ILRST 2100 , MATH 1710 , NTRES 3130 /BTRY 3010 /STSCI 2200 ,PAM 2100 , PAM 2101 , PSYCH 3500 , SOC 3010 , STSCI 2100, STSCI 2150 .
M. E. Karns, P. Velleman.
For description, see ILRST 2100 .
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