This course studies the social, cultural, and institutional contexts of science and technology, using the perspectives and methods derived from the social sciences and the humanities. It examines the assumptions about the neutrality and autonomy of science and technology, the distinction between the natural and the artificial, the social construction of knowledge, expertise and authority, and the relationships between human values, science and technology. The links among science, technology and the organization of time and space, as well as the changing conceptions of the self are discussed as critical dimensions of modernity and postmodernity
