How does science and technology influence contemporary culture? How does it shape and constrain public discourse? And who do we become when we use these “tools”? These are just a few of the questions this course will explore. We will examine the role of argument and persuasion in the history, evolution, and dissemination of science and technology with the purpose of gaining a stronger understanding of their capacities for influence, manipulation, connection, fabrication, and irreversible transformation. At every stage students will be asked to consider how techno-scientific phenomena influence everything from public discourse to structures of social formation to our bodies and environments. We will study great moments of invention, carefully examine those moments in-practice and in-context, and wrestle with how reality is remade in their wake. The general trajectory of this course is two-fold: the first half of the course is focused on the different critical/rhetorical approaches to the study of science and technology; in the second half we then pivot to focus primarily on developing your individual capstone papers.
- Teacher: Mitch Reyes