STV Courses Fall 2012
A few reminders in preparation for the fall 2012 semester:
1. STV students are strongly encouraged to take the core course, STV 20556, as soon as possible to avoid potential time conflicts in the future. This course is offered both in the fall and in most spring terms.
2. Each of the Science, Technology, and Values courses listed has a cross-listing in one or another of the regular departments of the university. STV minors may enroll in these as STV courses.
3. Students wishing to use STV courses to satisfy University requirements must register for them as departmental courses, not as STV courses. Students wishing to double-count a course for both a university requirement and for the STV minor should first consult with the STV Education Director Edward Jurkowitz. Please keep in mind that courses may NOT be double-counted for the STV minor and a major or another minor.
4. As always, please check insideND for the most current course information.
Courses are listed according to cluster (Cluster One, Cluster Two, Cluster Three, Cluster Four), then in numerical order. Please contact Edward Jurkowitz, director of Science, Technology and Values minor, at ejurkowi@nd.edu if you have any questions.
STV Fall 2012 Course Offerings
The Core Course
20556
Science, Technology & Society
MW 12:50pm – 1:40pm Ed Jurkowitz 3.0
CRN 12143
*Must enroll in STV 22556 01 or STV 22556 02
This course introduces the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies. Our concern will be with science and technology (including medicine) as social and historical, i.e., as human, phenomena. We shall examine the divergent roots of contemporary science and technology, and the similarities and (sometimes surprising) differences in their methods and goals. The central theme of the course will be the ways in which science and technology interact with other aspects of society, including the effects of technical and theoretical innovation in bringing about social change, and the social shaping of science and technology themselves by cultural, economic and political forces. Because science/society interactions so frequently lead to public controversy and conflict, we shall also explore what resources are available to mediate such conflicts in an avowedly democratic society.
22556 01
Science, Technology & Society
F 12:50pm – 1:40pm
CRN 12884
22556 02
Science, Technology & Society
F 1:55pm – 2:45pm
CRN 15550
This course introduces the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies. Our concern will be with science and technology (including medicine) as social and historical, i.e., as human, phenomena. We shall examine the divergent roots of contemporary science and technology, and the similarities and (sometimes surprising) differences in their methods and goals. The central theme of the course will be the ways in which science and technology interact with other aspects of society, including the effects of technical and theoretical innovation in bringing about social change, and the social shaping of science and technology themselves by cultural, economic and political forces. Because science/society interactions so frequently lead to public controversy and conflict, we shall also explore what resources are available to mediate such conflicts in an avowedly democratic society.
Cluster 1: Human Dimensions of Science & Technology
20125
Philosophy & Science Fiction
MW 8:00am - 9:15am Michael Rea 3.0
CRN 18735 Crosslist: PHIL 20620
The goal of this course is to introduce students to some central philosophical problems via reflection on classic and contemporary works of science fiction in conjunction with classic and contemporary texts in philosophy.
20160
Literature & Ecology
TR 2:00pm – 3:15pm John Sitter 3.0
CRN 19309 Crosslist: ENGL 20160
The course will study works of ecological imagination, primarily in contemporary literature but with some attention to classic earlier works. Reading non-fiction, fiction, and poetry, we will explore how ecological awareness figures in various kinds of literature, with a particular emphasis on late 20th- and 21st-century understandings of challenges to sustainability, such as diminishing resources, extinction of species, and climate change. We will attend to the heightened importance of voice, narrative, and metaphor in literary renderings of how to best understand our creative possibilities at what is arguably the "beginning of the most crucial decades in the history of the human species on earth." Other topics concern how the relation of literature to science and the meanings of "nature" are changing, how to understand current environmental controversies more critically, and how to enter those discussions more thoughtfully. Readings will include novels by T.C. Boyle, Margaret Atwood, and Ruth Ozeki; non-fiction by Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard, and Bill McKibben; and poems by Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, Denise Levertov, A.R. Ammons, Wendell Berry, and Pattiann Rogers. Requirements include several one-page response papers, a more ambitious essay, a midterm examination, and a final examination. This course is primarily for non-majors; it can also satisfy one of the requirements of the minor in Sustainability Studies.
30107
American Intellectual History to 1870
MW 1:30pm – 2:45pm Jim Turner 3.0
CRN 19314 Crosslist: HIST 30707
This lecture course will survey major developments in American thought from the first English contacts with North America to the mid nineteenth century. Emphasis will fall on ideas about religion, society, politics, and natural science and on the institutions and social contexts of intellectual life, with an eye towards understanding the roots of our own ways of thinking. Especially in the first weeks of the course, European backgrounds will also receive attention.
30110
Health, Healing & Culture
MWF 11:45am – 12:35pm TBA 3.0
CRN 19315 Crosslist: ANTH 35210
This course introduces the field of medical anthropology, which examines beliefs, practices, and experiences of illness, health, and healing from a cross-cultural perspective. This course will consider the ways in which medical anthropology has historically been influenced by debates within the discipline of anthropology, as well as by broader social and political movements. Particular emphasis will be placed on the importance of viewing biomedicine as one among many culturally constructed systems of medicine.
30121
History of the Medical Science
MW 8:00am – 9:15am Christopher Hamlin 3.0
CRN 19316 Crosslist: 30021
This course is an intellectual history of western medicine. It is intended to familiarize students with the multiple explanatory problems that occur in medicine and the most important approaches to them. Its focus will be much more on medical theory and knowledge than on medical practice and institutions. The course will begin with a review the Hippocratic and Galenic heritages and early modern appeals to chemical and physical explanations of disease and of health. A middle section will explore the 17th-18th century syntheses of Sydenham, Boerhaave, and Cullen, consider the difficult problem of nosology, and examine the empiricist critique in the clinics of early nineteenth-century Paris, including the conflict between ontological and physiological concepts of disease. The final section will examine several distinct trends in the nineteenth century: the impact of experimental physiology, the growth of clinical science, the emergence of epidemiology and tropical medicine, the rise of bacteriology, immunology, and virology; and the impact of new statistical methods. Reading assignments will be a mix of scholarly articles by medical historians and extracts from primary sources. Requirements include critical reviews of primary sources, journal, quizzes, and final exam. There are no prerequisites for the course. While some familiarity with the human body and its ailments and vulnerabilities, and some comfort with modes of biological explanation will be helpful, the course is intended for persons with general interests.
30161
History of Television
MW 11:45am – 1:00pm Christine Becker 3.0
CRN 14417 Crosslist: FTT 30461
Must enroll in STV 31161
This course analyzes the history of television, spanning from its roots in radio broadcasting to the latest developments in digital television. In assessing the many changes across this span, the course will cover such topics as why the American television industry developed as a commercial medium in contrast to most other national television industries; how television programming has both reflected and influenced cultural ideologies through the decades; and how historical patterns of television consumption have shifted due to new technologies and social changes. Through studying the historical development of television programs and assessing the industrial, technological, and cultural systems out of which they emerged, the course will piece together the catalysts responsible for shaping this highly influential medium.
31161
History of Television Lab
T 6:30pm – 8:30pm
CRN 14418
Must enroll in STV 30161
During the lab times, certain television shows will be viewed for further discussion in class.
40110
Visits to Bedlam
TR 11:00am – 12:15pm Christopher Fox 3.0
CRN 19319 Crosslist: ENGL 18675
Until visitation was restricted in 1770, London's Bethlem Hospital (popularly known as "Bedlam") attracted as many as 96,000 spectators per year who paid for the privilege of watching mental patients. Like the tigers in The Tower, these patients were not simply chained, but shown, put on exhibition. The cruelty of this practice and the fact that it was stopped both point to the eighteenth-century fascination with madness, with the irrational, with what Freud would call the "unheimlich," the "uncanny." Samuel Johnson's astronomer who comes to believe that he personally controls the weather, Laurence Sterne's mad Maria, piping for her lost lover, John Locke's man who believes himself made out of glass and who acts "reasonably" to avoid hard objects, or Jonathan Swift's modest proposer who concocts a cookbook to save the Irish nation all bear witness to this other side of the eighteenth century, the subject of this course. We will begin with selections from Cervantes' Don Quixote and some short readings in Locke and others who attempted to analyze madness. We will then move on to explorations of Samuel Johnson, Tobias Smollett, Laurence Sterne, and Jonathan Swift. Our major focus will be on Swift, with special attention to his poetry, Gulliver's Travels, and A Tale of A Tub. Swift, who was a Governor of Bethlem Hospital, left most of his money to fund the first mental hospital in Ireland, St. Patrick's, which is still there. As he later said, "He gave what little wealth he had, To build a house for fools and mad: And showed by one satiric touch, No nation wanted it so much." For the sake of comparison, we will conclude with several nineteenth century selections.
40172
History of Chinese Medicine
TR 9:30 – 10:45am Dian Murray 3.0
CRN 19320 Crosslist: HIST 30141
In light of the contemporary currency of certain Chinese practices in the field of alternative medicine, this course will explore the phenomenon of Chinese traditional medicine in both its historical and contemporary settings. The first unit, Medicine in Ancient China, will explore the earliest medical ideas of the Chinese and will demonstrate how the state's political unification gave rise to a correlative cosmology that not only included Heaven and Earth, but also human beings as integral elements of an organic cosmos. The second unit will explore the influences and contributions of Taoism (Daoism) and Buddhism to Chinese medicine and will explore what it meant to be both physicians and patients in late imperial China. The third unit will focus on medicine in contemporary China and will feature the experiences of Elisabeth Hsu, a student of Chinese medical anthropology who, as a part of her doctoral research, enrolled as a student in Yunnan Traditional Chinese Medical College between September 1988 and December 1989. We will conclude the course with a brief examination of the influence of Chinese medicine on the contemporary world.
43101
Telling About Society
TR 12:30 – 1:45 Terence McDonnell 3.0
CRN 16671 Crosslist: SOC 43101
How do we see the world? How do these modes of representation determine our social reality? How can we use media to create social change? This rigorous seminar interrogates the lenses through which we see, and more importantly make, our world. We open with an interrogation of theories of media, representation, and the sociology of knowledge so as to develop a critical eye towards how these lenses shape our everyday reality. From there we discuss particular modes of representation: photography, ethnography, statistics, journalism, maps, and more. We consider the inherent biases within these ways of seeing, and debate the appropriate uses of these technologies. From this starting point, the course turns its eye to particular historical periods and phenomena: the Great Depression, Vietnam War, the era of HIV/AIDS, and the growing surveillance society. We compare across different media representations of each event to evaluate how different media tell very different kinds of stories about that moment. Ultimately, this class presses students to consider the capacities of these media for encouraging mobilization and change - to redesign the world. To work through these issues, students will engage in fieldwork on a local topic of their choosing. Their final project will consider how different media have shaped our knowledge of a local issue, and in response students will create a final multimedia campaign designed to alter people's "ways of seeing" that topic. In this project, students will persuade their audience using a variety of "lenses" to make their case: from ethnography to documentary film to radio journalism to new media and more.
Cluster 2: Science, Technology and Ethics
20245
Medical Ethics
MW 10:40am – 11:30am William Solomon 3.0
CRN 13223 Crosslist: PHIL 20602
*Must enroll in STV 22245
An exploration from the point of view of ethical theory of a number of ethical problems in contemporary biomedicine. Topics discussed will include euthanasia, abortion, the allocation of scarce medical resources, truth telling in the doctor-patient relationship, the right to medical care and informed consent and human experimentation.
22245
Medical Ethics – Discussion
F 10:40am – 11:30am William Solomon 3.0
CRN 16643 Crosslist: PHIL 22602
*Must enroll in STV 20245
20263
Science Fiction & Literature
TR 5:00pm – 6:15pm Timothy Miller 3.0
CRN 19310 Crosslist: ENGL 20163
Science fiction. Literature. We often think of these two categories as fundamentally separate, even if the occasional author seems to 'cross over' from one side to the other. But the main theme of this course will be that the best of modern science fiction takes up the same questions that great literature has always taken up. What does it mean to be human? What is our place in the universe? What do life and death mean -- biologically, spiritually, or otherwise? In fact, science fiction seems better equipped to examine some of the newer problems human beings have had to face: for example, what comes next now that we have the power to change our environment irreversibly? This course is not a survey of science fiction, and we will instead read some of its major practitioners -- H. G. Wells, H. P. Lovecraft, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, and others -- alongside more mainstream literary texts, including but not limited to Greek tragedy, Romantic lyric poetry, the postmodern novel, and the 20th-century 'literary' short story (Borges, Joyce, Calvino, Rushdie, etc.). As the course will also emphasize the major role science fiction has played in the new media of the last century, we will take some time to consider SF film (including Ridley Scott's Blade Runner), television (such as The Twilight Zone), and even rock opera
40216
Bio-Medical Ethics, Scientific Evidence & Pub Health Risk
T 3:30pm – 6:00pm Kristin Shrader-Frechette 3.0
CRN 13229 Crosslist: PHIL 43708
An analysis of the ethical theories provided by contemporary philosophers to guide research and practice in biomedicine. The course will focus on analysis of contemporary public health problems created by environmental/technological pollution and will address classic cases of biomedical ethics problems. Students who are not pre-med, engineering, or science majors need the professor's permission to take this course.
Cluster 3: Science, Technology & Public Policy
20304
Energy & Society
TR 3:30pm – 4:45pm Ani Aprahamian 3.0
CRN 15260 Crosslist: PHYS 20051
A course developing the basic ideas of energy and power and their applications from a quantitative and qualitative viewpoint. The fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) are studied together with their societal limitations (pollution, global warming, diminishing supply). Nuclear power is similarly studied in the context of the societal concerns that arise (radiation, reactor accidents, nuclear weapons proliferation, high-level waste disposal). The opportunities as well as the risks presented by alternative energy resources, in particular solar energy, wind, geothermal and hydropower, together with various aspects of energy conservation, are developed and discussed. This course is designed for the non-specialist.
20306
Environmental Chemistry
TR 11:00am – 12:15pm Patricia Maurice 3.0
CRN 16300 Crosslist: CE 40320
Discussion of basic chemical processes occurring in the environment, particularly those relating to the impact of humanity's technological enterprise.
20310
Health, Medicine, & Society
TR 3:30pm – 4:45pm Russel Faeges 3.0
CRN 19311 Crosslist: 20410
This course is a comprehensive introduction to the sociology of health and of medicine. First we will examine how sociological variables affect people's health. Research is rapidly accumulating which shows that sociological variables have a huge impact on people's susceptibility to various illnesses, on their access to health care, and on their compliance with medical advice. Such variables include people's neighborhoods, occupations, and lifestyles; their social class, education, race, ethnicity, and gender - and the density of "social networks", whose importance for health was predicted by one of sociology's founders over 100 years ago. Second we will examine medicine, both the practice of medicine by individual health care professionals, viewed sociologically, and the operation of the increasingly large and bureaucratic medical institutions in which health care professionals must work. In addition, we will examine sociological issues that overlap "medicine", such as radically long shifts; the rapid increase in the proportion of female doctors; and increasing concern with work/family balance among practitioners. Third, we will examine health and medicine in relation to other dimensions of society, such as the modern economy, the media, law, the internet, government and politics. Health and medicine are intrinsically social and they cannot be isolated from the effects of the rest of society, many of which run counter to strictly "medical" considerations. Finally, we will examine health and medicine globally. We will compare health and medicine in a number of societies to see and explain how they are similar and how they differ - for example, how different societies pay for medical care. And we will examine global trends with implications for health and medicine that require cooperation among societies, such as the way in which global air travel both increases the danger of global pandemics and makes possible "medical tourism."
20331
Introduction to Criminology
MWF 11:45am – 12:35pm Mim Thomas 3.0
CRN 19312 Crosslist: SOC 20732
As in introduction to the topic of criminology, this course examines crime as a social problem within American society. Particular attention is given to the nature and function of law in society, theoretical perspectives on crime, victimology, sources of crime data, the social meaning of criminological data and the various societal responses to crime. These topics are addressed through specialized readings, discussion, and analysis.
30311
Intro to American Health Care System
MWF 12:45pm – 1:40pm Rudolph Navari 3.0
CRN 13243 Crosslist: SCPP 30311
The course will begin with a short history of the American health care system and will be followed by a discussion of the major components of the system (patients, providers, payers), health insurance coverage, managed care programs, the movement for quality health care, physicians in the changing medical marketplace, health care expenditures, and academic medical centers.
30342
Understanding Food and Agriculture Policy
TR 12:30pm – 1:45pm Matthew Doppke 3.0
CRN 19317 Crosslist: POLS 30042
This course introduces students to agro-food studies: the linked systems of agricultural production, food processing, distribution, and consumption. Market forces, technology, public policies, and increasingly, quasi-private systems of governance structure agro-food systems. Our aim is to understand how these forces have together shaped what we call modern agriculture, and how to realistically evaluate criticisms against it.
40319
Self, Society, & Environment
TR 2:00pm – 3:15pm Andrew Weigert 3.0
CRN 40319 Crosslist: SOC 18745
This course introduces students to social psychological aspects of the natural environment. Issues considered include interacting with different environments, symbolic transformations of environments, competing accounts, and claims concerning environments. With an overview of basic information, these issues are discussed from the perspectives of individual self and sociocultural institutions. The course touches on alternative ways of envisioning, interacting, and valuing human-environment relations with an eye toward individual and collective change.
43372
Politics of Science
TR 2:00pm-3:15pm Philip Mirowski 3.0
CRN 19322 Crosslist: HPS 93772
This course examines the increasing politicization of science, and the escalation of the enrollment of science in political controversies over the past century. Starting out with brief characterizations of major political theories such as liberalism, communitarianism, republicanism and neoliberalism, we then turn to the origins of the conviction that science was inherently "apolitical" rooted in the 1930s-50s in the philosophy, sociology and history of science, and in popular culture. The purported alliance of science with democratic structures is considered. Political controversies over Nazi science, Soviet science, atomic war and Cold war science are surveyed, followed by more recent controversies over the so-called "Science Wars," the treatment of expertise, Foucault, feminism, and actor-network theory. The economics of science movement is treated as a reaction to the above. We then turn from theory to description of modern incidents of the relationship of science to politics, beginning with surveys of the history of science policy, controversies over biotechnology, global warming, intellectual property, the pharmaceuticals industry, and attempts by international agencies and NGOs to regulate the international diffusion of science. Readings: Mark Brown, Science in Democracy; May & Susan Sell, Intellectual Property Rights: a critical history, Thomas McGarity and Wendy Wagner, Bending Science, Philip Mirowski, ScienceMart
43396
Environmental Justice
M 3:30pm – 6:00pm Kristin Shrader-Frechette 3.0
CRN 19323 Crosslist: PHIL 43308
This course will survey environmental impact assessment (EIA), ecological risk assessment (ERA), and human-health risk assessment (HHRA); ethical and methodological issues related to these techniques; then apply these techniques to contemporary assessments for which state and federal governments are seeking comments by scientists and citizens. The course is hands-on, will have no tests, but will be project-based, with students working on actual assessments that they choose (about 2,500 are done in US each year). The goal will be to teach students EIA, ERA, and HHRA and how to evaluate draft analyses, particularly those used to site facilities or make environment-related decisions in which poor people, minorities, and other stakeholders are themselves unable to provide comments. Course will cover flaws in scientific method and flaws in ethics that typically appear in these assessments. Students who are not pre-med, engineering, or science majors need the professor's permission to take this course.
Cluster 4: Electives
20431
Philosophy & Cosmology: A Revolution
MW 11:45am – 1:00pm Katherine Brading 3.0
CRN 18736 Crosslist: PHIL 20612
In the 17th century there was a revolution in our view of the cosmos and of our own place in it. Most vivid, perhaps was the change from believing that the Earth is at the center of everything to believing that the Earth is just one planet among many, orbiting the sun. This course will consider how and why these changes took place.
30900
Foundations Sociological Theory
TR 12:30 – 1:45 Mary Ellen Konieczny 3.0
CRN 19318 Crosslist: SOC 30900
Sociological theory is the foundation of sociology. Students in this course will learn two things: first, what theorists do and why and, second, how to use fundamental theoretic concepts - such as exploitation and alienation, social structure and solidarity, bureaucracy and charisma - to analyze and explain contemporary society.
33401
Animal Welfare & Human – Animal Bond
W 5:00pm – 6:30pm Michelle Whaley, Kay Stewart 3.0
CRN 13284
Consider the fact that in six short years, one female dog and her offspring can give birth to 67,000 puppies. In seven years, one cat and her young can produce 420,000 kittens. Three to four million dogs and cats are euthanized each year. It is estimated that there are 60 million feral cats in the US. In a society that considers pets as part of their family, watches Animal Planet, and spends millions of dollars on pet products, it is imperative that we acknowledge and educate ourselves on the issues of over population of pet animals in our society. What is our responsibility to these animals, and how can we solve these pressing problems? The focus of this course will be on animal behavior from an evolutionary perspective. The students will learn to recognize both desirable and undesirable behaviors in pet animals. They will learn how to use evolutionary behavior training methods to alter detrimental behaviors and reinforce those that are advantageous. This course will also cover animal welfare issues, and will intimately and meaningfully connect the state of humans, to that of animals. The students will carry out community research projects of their choice and will immerse themselves in an important issue and generate a product that can help the plight of animals (and therefore humans) in our community.