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Cultural Studies of Science and Technology
Course leaders: Prof. Maureen McNeil, Lancaster University, UK, and Ingunn Moser, TIK <i.b.moser@tik.uio.no>
When: 27 – 29 August 2007
Place: rooms to be announced, in Blindern /University of Oslo
Deadline for delivering paper: 01. October 2007
If paper is submitted and approved, the course will give 5 ECTS credits.
Click here to register for this course
The doctoral course is open for all PhD-students, but students from TIK and UiO will have priority.
Description and objective
This PhD-course will elucidate what is involved in doing cultural studies of science and technology and what 'the cultural turn' might involve for science and technology studies. As such it aims to examine the intersection of cultural studies and science and technology studies, and to discuss and explore in particular the role of cultural formations.
The course is structured around key themes in cultural studies of science and technology: evolution, nature and reproduction. It begins with theories of evolution (particularly those of Charles Darwin) in the nineteenth century and focuses on how these have been and are investigated with regard to their cultural resources, and so contextualised. Questions these studies raise include: How is context understood and investigated? What to include and what to exclude? What empirical materials to use, and what methods? The second day we move on to the issue of how to think about different ideas about nature and reproduction, with particular reference to the role of science and technology. We continue our discussions about the proper site and framing of studies of science as culture, and the contributions of different empirical materials and methods. The third and last day is devoted to questions about science, politics, and the role of (sub- or counter)culture. Again we explore implications of different research strategies and methods.
Participants will gain a thorough introduction to the intellectual traditions, concepts and political concerns which have shaped the evolution of cultural studies of science and technology through consideration of key debates and issues. They will also be introduced to, discuss and critically reflect upon cultural studies research strategies and research methods. Through engagement with this course participants will gain an understanding of the diversity of perspectives and approaches to research in cultural studies of science and technology, a thorough knowledge of key debates and authors and a capacity for critical reflection on research strategy and methodology.
Structure of course:
Mornings:
Afternoons:
Students will be evaluated on the basis of their participation in the classroom as well as a research paper (of approximately 4000 words) or draft chapter/article. Students should discuss their chapter/paper topic with the course leader. Students are encouraged to integrate the paper assignment with their thesis work as much as possible and to read beyond the course literature for writing the research paper.
Preliminary plan and reading list :
Day 1, session 1: Darwin and his cultural resources
Reading:
G. Beer, (2000) Darwin’s Plots: evolutionary narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and nineteenth-century fiction, 2nd.edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [A selection]
G. Levine (2000) ‘Foreword’ to G. Beer, (2000) Darwin’s Plots: evolutionary narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and nineteenth-century fiction, 2nd.edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
A section from one of the following:
A. J. Desmond (1984) The Politics of Evolution: morphology, medicine and reform in radical London, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
A. J. Desmond, and J. Moore (1991) Darwin, London: Michael Joseph.
C. Darwin (1859) On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, London: John Murray. [A short section.]
Day 2, session 2: Ideas of nature and reproduction
Reading:
R. Williams (1980) ‘The idea of nature’(1972) in his Problems in Materialism and Culture: selected essays, London: Verso.
L. Jordanova (1989) Sexual Visions: images of gender in science and medicine between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. [A selection]
M. McNeil (2005) ‘Nature’ in New Keywords: a revised vocabulary of culture and society, ed. T. Bennett, L.Grossberg, and M. Morris, Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
The Science and Technology Subgroup (1991) ‘In the wake of the Alton Bill: science, technology and reproductive politics’ and
M.McNeil (1991) ‘Putting the Alton Bill in context’, in S. Franklin, C. Lury and J.Stacey (eds) Off-Centre: feminism and cultural studies, London: Harper Collins, pp.147-8; 149-59.
J. Haran, J. Kitzinger, M. McNeil, K. O’Riordan (2007) Cloning in the Media: from science fiction to science practice, London: Routledge, ch. 1 and 2.
Day 3, session 3: Science, politics, and the role of (sub- or counter)culture
Reading:
D.C. Hoy (ed.) (1986) Foucault: a critical reader, Oxford: B. Blackwell. [A selection].
D. Haraway (1989) Primate Visions: gender, race and nature in the world of modern science, New York and London: Routledge. [A selection ]
A. Ross (1989) ‘Hacking away at the counter culture’, in C. Penley and A. Ross (eds), Technoculture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
A. Barry (2001) Political Machines: governing a technological society, New Brunswick, N.J.: Athlone Press. [A selection]
M.McNeil (2007, forthcoming) ‘Telling tales of reproduction and technoscience’ (ch.6) in Feminist Cultural Studies of Science and Technology, London: Routledge.
Invited speaker and teacher:
Maureen McNeil is professor of Women’s Studies and Cultural Studies at the Institute for Women’s Studies at the University of Lancaster in the UK. With a background in the history of science and in the cultural dimensions of the industrial revolution, she describes her academic life as shaped by her commitments to the politicised inter-disciplines of cultural studies and feminist studies. In the early 1970s she was a key figure in the Radical Science Movement. Since the late 1970s, she has been involved in the development of feminist studies of science and technology as a teacher and researcher.
Maureen McNeil has recently been Principal Investigator on one of the flagship projects in CESAGen (Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics) – on Media, Culture and Genomics. This carries her interests in the politics of reproduction, scientific theories, technology, and popular culture onto the terrain of contemporary human genomics. The project traces key sites in the making of genomics as a public science, par excellence , looking at recent news reporting, film, television drama, literary and artistic representations of human genomics.
Her recent publications include:
Joan Haran, Jenny Kitzinger, M.McNeil, K. O’Riordan , Cloning in the Media: from science fiction to science practice, London: Routledge (forthcoming, 2007) and
Feminist Cultural Studies of Science and Technology, London: Routledge (forthcoming, 2007).
Registration and contact:
studiekonsulent
Ole –Ronny Tveite-Strand
Tel 22841622
o.r.tveite-strand@tik.uio.no
Visiting address:
Eilert Sundts hus, 7th Floor, Moltke Moes vei 31
Postal address:
P.O.Box 1108 Blindern
0317 Oslo, Norway