Course Description: History, philosophy, sociology, politics, and cultural studies of science, technology, and medicine. Emphasis on a broad range of perspectives.

Course Description: Introduction to topics and methods of the history of science and technology. Emphasis on understanding the role of science and technology in the modern world through a long-term historical perspective.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Introduction to topics and methods of the history of science and technology. Emphasis on understanding the role of science and technology in the modern world through a long-term historical perspective.

Course Description: Data visualizations and the idea of beauty using historical and contemporary examples from around the world. Data visualizations as rhetorical tools, conceptions of beauty, attractiveness, and elegance. Interdisciplinary interpretation of visual data and information.

Course Description: Collaborations between artists and scientists. Roles of government, industry, and education in shaping collaborations in the 20th and 21st centuries. Interdisciplinary exploration of scientific and artistic ways of building knowledge, cultures, and infrastructures.

Course Description: Relationships among law, technology, and science. Scientific evidence and testimony, biology education, patenting, and sterilization.

Course Description: Epidemics in world history and the cultural impacts of contagious diseases.The roles of science, medicine, media, and the arts in shaping social conceptions of health and illness.

Course Description: Survey of the relationship between sex, science, and society in the history of the modern world. Emphasis on the development of scientific ideas about the human body against broader social, cultural, and political trends and from a global viewpoint.

Course Description: Drugs, politics, science, society in a cultural perspective: emphasis on roles of science, government and the media in shifting attitudes toward alcohol, marijuana, Prozac and other pharmaceuticals; drug laws, war on drugs and global trade in sugar, opium, cocaine.

Course Description: History of Media to 1945, with particular focus on mechanically reproduced mass media technologies including the printing press, the newspaper, photography, cinema, radio and early computing technology. Analysis of inter-related cultural and political topics.

Course Description: History of media from 1945 to present, with particular focus on the development of the computer, digital network and Internet technologies in the context of other media infrastructures like radio, television and satellite networks. Analysis of inter-related cultural/political topics.

Prerequisite(s): STS 040A.

Course Description: Study of science in ancient Greece and Rome; consideration of its social context; concentration on the basic concepts of physics the world of medicine and biology the history of mathematics and the practices of astronomy astrology and meteorology.

Course Description: Medicine in ancient Greece and Rome; physiological conceptions of the body within scientific and social frameworks; exploration of sanitation technology and health in antiquity; medical treatment of the female body; medicine and the economy.

Course Description: Work experience off and on campus in all subject areas offered in the program in Science & Technology Studies under the supervision of a member of the faculty.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Directed group study.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Special study for undergraduates.

Course Description: Methodological approaches for studying science, technology, and medicine in social context. Detailed case studies illustrate different historical, philosophical, sociological, ethical, rhetorical, and political methods of analysis.

Prerequisite(s): STS 001 recommended.

Course Description: Basic concepts in data science from a socio-cultural perspective. Identifying data stakeholders and their biases, reading and evaluating data documentation, exploring data through analysis and visualization, identifying knowledge gaps, and assessing data ethics.

Course Description: Artificial intelligence and machine learning in social context. Implications of AI for scientific, legal, educational, economic, and political systems. History of AI research and development. Debates about privacy, security, authenticity, and public policy in the era of AI, with focus on diversity, social justice, and ethical decision-making. Hands-on exercises and projects using AI that generates text and images.

Course Description: Historical and conceptual framework for contemporary debates about intellectual property and science. Topics include U.S. patent system and copyright law, interaction between patents and industrial policy, credit in academic and industrial science, role of IP in global knowledge politics.

Prerequisite(s): STS 001; or other Social Science or Humanities writing course.

Course Description: Anthropological approaches to scientific visualization techniques, informatics, simulations. Examination of different visualization techniques toward understanding the work involved in producing them, critical assessment of their power and limits, especially when visualizations are used socially to make claims.

Prerequisite(s): STS 001 or STS 020 or ANT 002 recommended.

Course Description: Introduction to the problems in American law and policy borne out of the creation and use of information technologies. Topics include intellectual property, corporate law, privacy, and emerging problems surrounding big data.

Course Description: Race and racial formations in science, technology, and medicine. History of racial thought in scientific and medical research; colonial and decolonial modes of knowledge production; the racialization of technology; intersectional approaches to technoscience, social justice, environmental justice, and health care equity.

Course Description: Analysis and visualization of historical and contemporary data about populations and societies using R. Critical exploration of visual communication of information about people over time and critical assessment of role of data collection and analysis in societies.

Course Description: Historical introduction to the joint development of business and technology in the United States from the late-19th century to the present day.

Course Description: Introduction to the global spread of information technologies like computers and smartphones. Special focus on their social, cultural, and commercial impact.

Course Description: Data science and the communication of data insights through critical storytelling. Attention to the historical and social contexts of data analysis, emphasizing narrative, visualization, and exploration. Introduction to the R computing environment for data analysis.

Course Description: Religion, magic, and science from the middle ages to the present. Contrast between modern scientific methodology and religious and magical thinking.

Course Description: Introduction to critical medical anthropology. Topics include anthropological analysis of bio-medicine, psychiatry, systems of knowledge and healing, the body, emotions, and clinical encounters in a cross-cultural perspective.

Prerequisite(s): ANT 002 recommended.

Course Description: Critical/historical examination of medical technologies: imaging, pharmaceuticals, genetics, implants/devices. Exploration of mutually constitutive relationship between health, medical technologies, social difference (race/gender/class/sexuality).

Course Description: Recent works in medical anthropology and the science studies of medicine dealing with social and cultural aspects of global health issues such as AIDS, pandemics, clinical trials, cultural differences in illnesses, diabetes, organ trafficking, medical technologies, illness narratives, and others.

Prerequisite(s): ANT 002 recommended.

Course Description: Evolution and demise of natural history as a discipline from Aristotle to Linnaeus. Considers ancient views of nature and its Renaissance rediscovery; the emergence of biology, botany, geology, and zoology; the history of taxonomy and classification.

Prerequisite(s): HIS 135A recommended.

Course Description: Development of modern biology from pre-Darwinian roots to the present. Considers emergence of modern biological specialities and consolidation of biological theory around evolutionary ideas. History of allied fields such as genetics, paleontology, embryology, ecology, systematics and molecular biology.

Prerequisite(s): STS 130A recommended.

Course Description: Students will explore the life and times of Charles Darwin and will trace the development of evolutionary thinking before and after the Origin of Species to appreciate its place in Victorian society and in the corpus of Darwins thought.

Prerequisite(s): Upper division standing or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Rise of modern science in Europe, 1500–1750. Transformation of ideas about nature, knowledge, medicine, and technology in the age of Copernicus, Vesalius, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton.

Starting Spring Quarter 2025, this course is no longer offered.

Course Description: Race and racial formations in science, technology, and medicine. History of racial thought in scientific and medical research; colonial and decolonial modes of knowledge production; the racialization of technology; intersectional approaches to technoscience, social justice, environmental justice, and health care equity.

Course Description: Interdisciplinary approach to the relations between gender and science. Topics include the biological and cultural construction of sexual difference, the role of women as practitioners of science, and feminist approaches to science.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Critical and theoretical approaches to the emergence of new technologies since the invention of photography. Examine various approaches to media (formalist, semiotic, structuralist, Frankfurt School, cybernetics, visual and gamer theory).

Prerequisite(s): CDM 002 or CDM 003 recommended.

Course Description: Critical and creative approaches to auditory data and display in art, science, and technology. Practical introduction to sonification techniques through sound studies and sensory ethnography. Heuristic listening and collaborative sound design.

Course Description: Historical, aesthetic and critical approaches to how information technologies produced ghost effects or a sense of terror in response to new media like the photograph, gramophone, film, typewriter, computer, Turing Machine. Focus on technological media transforms sense perception.

Course Description: Cultural concepts of time; units and instruments of time measurement; historical differences in the social organization of time; and time measurement in 20th-century science.

Prerequisite(s): STS 001.

Course Description: Study of the ubiquitous presence of CCTV, face recognition software, global tracking systems, biosensors, and data mining practices that have made surveillance part of our daily life. Exploration of the boundary between security and control, information and spying.

Prerequisite(s): STS 020 or TCS 001.

Course Description: History of communication technologies from the late Middle Ages to the 20th century. Questions of technology, knowledge, power and culture. Particular attention to questions about information and truth.

Course Description: Texts and writing practices in the production of scientific knowledge. Surveys the literary structure of scientific arguments; history of scientific genres; rhetoric and semiotics in scientific culture; graphical systems in the experimental laboratory; narratives of science, including science fiction.

Prerequisite(s): STS 001 or ENL 003 or ENL 003V; or equivalent.

Course Description: Built environments, which are designed to support forms of life. Their role as carriers of cultural memory and in turning knowledge of nature into social assets. Historical constellations of knowledge, social order, and power.

Course Description: Critical approaches to the study of video games, focusing on formal, historical, and cultural modes of analysis. History of software and hardware in North American and global contexts. Relations of games to society, politics, economics, media, etc.

Prerequisite(s): CDM 072 or ENL 072 recommended.

Course Description: The literary modes and methods of science fiction. Representative texts, authors, and themes of the genre; e.g., time travel, alternative universes, and utopias. Relations of science fiction to science, philosophy, and culture.

Prerequisite(s): STS 001 or ENL 003 or ENL 003V; or equivalent.

Course Description: Hands-on training in Science & Technology Studies fieldwork, interviewing, archival research and data analysis. Review of laboratory studies literature, informed consent procedures, ethics, and care of the data. Individual and group projects possible.

Prerequisite(s): Upper division standing or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Social, cultural, and historical dimensions of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge. Problems, methods, and theory in sociology of scientific knowledge. Laboratory and historical case studies. Scientific and technical knowledge in institutional and organizational contexts.

Prerequisite(s): SOC 001, SOC 002, or SOC 003 recommended.

Course Description: In-depth treatment of selected topics in anthropology, history, philosophy, and sociology of science and related fields. Possible topics include science and society, science and power, scientific explanation, technology and culture, theory testing.

Prerequisite(s): Course in Science Technology Studies (STS) or other course-work relevant to topic.

Course Description: Intensive reading, discussion, research and writing by small groups in selected topics of science, technology, and medicine studies scholarship. Emphasis on individual research projects.

Prerequisite(s): Open to junior and senior Science Technology Studies majors only.

Course Description: Work experience off and on campus in all subject areas offered in the program in Science & Technology Studies under the supervision of a member of the faculty.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Directed reading and research in preparation for a thesis project.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor; senior standing faculty approval recommended.

Course Description: Development of a research thesis, supervised by a faculty member.

Prerequisite(s): STS 194A; consent of instructor; senior standing faculty approval recommended.

Course Description: Analysis of real-world data in the form of case studies engaging current issues. Emphasizes teamwork in the identification of problems and sources of relevant data; data cleaning, exploration, analysis, and visualization using R; and interpretation and presentation of results to a variety of stakeholders in oral, visual, and textual formats.

Prerequisite(s): STS 101; or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Directed group study.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Special study for advanced undergraduates.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Theories and methods of Science & Technology Studies as a field of critical and empirical scholarship, and examination of various contexts in which STS has emerged worldwide.

Course Description: Recent topics, debates, and innovative methods in Science & Technology Studies. Issues may include the governance of technoscience, science and media, data studies, indigenous knowledge, science and globalization, citizen science, new and emerging technologies.

Course Description: Introduction to the history and theory of digital technologies. Human-machine interaction, cybernetics, software studies, and global networking.

Course Description: Interdisciplinary seminar in the history and philosophy of science. Focuses on issues such as historiography, methodology, and the conceptual foundations of science.

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Group study.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Research,

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Teaching assistant training practicum.

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing.