STS Workshop 2005

Faculty workshop on: "Nanotechnology as an STS Case Study"

Wed. Mar. 8 at 4:30 pm in Brackett 213

Speaker: Alfred Nordmann
      Professor am Institut für Philosophie, Technische Universität
Darmstadt, Schloss, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany
      Adjunct Professor at the Philosophy Department, University of South
Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29205, USA

Alfred will give a general introduction to nanotechnology research programs and discuss political and public reactions in the U.S. and Europe.  This workshop should be useful for anyone who might want to bring up nanotechnology in an STS course.

Paul B. Thompson: professor of agricultural, food and community ethics in the department of philosophy at Michigan State University.  His research is on ethical issues in genetic engineering in agriculture (http://pewagbiotech.org/events/0920/bios/thompson.php)

Public lecture: Feb. 14 "Biotechnology and the Blind Chicken Problem"

Faculty workshop: Feb. 15, 4:30 pm, Brackett 213: “The Agrifood Biotechnology Controversy and STS: Models for Study and Learning”

Handouts for Workshop: Chapter 1, bibliography
Wed. Jan. 25, 4:30 -5:30 pm, Brackett 213
Valerie Hardcastle
Director of the Science and Technology Studies Program, Virginia Tech
The Life Sciences and Film: Bringing STS into the Undergraduate Classroom

Workshop Fri. Nov. 11:
Stephanie Houston Grey on communications studies and STS
2:30-4 pm Riggs 223

Lecture Thus. Nov. 10:
Technology and the Body: Medical Realism and Cyber Aesthetics in
Eating Disorders and Atomic Bomb Survivors
Dr. Stephanie Houston Grey
Louisiana State University
4 p.m. in 111 Lee Hall
Lecture sponsored by Science and Technology in Society Program and Women’s Studies Program

Wed. Oct. 12, 4-5:30 pm, Riggs 226, Workshop on STS teaching techniques with Dr. Julie Newell of Southern Polytechnic

Dr. Newell has a Ph.D. in history of science from Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison and is coordinator of a general education STS requirement at Southern Polytechnic.  She will use various case studies to show how to help students consider complex policy issues from different perspectives using a more-detailed version of the following set of questions:

CHOICE--what choices are being made and who is doing the choosing

ACCESS--how and why access to knowledge or technology is controlled and distributed

RISK--what risks are involved and how they are defined, measured, and weighed; whether those at risk are involved in the decision making process

COST--what costs (economic, environmental, social, etc.) are involved and how they are defined, measured, and weighed; whether those bearing the costs are involved in the decision making process

RESPONSIBILITY--what issues of individual, professional, social, or governmental responsibility are involved

BENEFITS-- what the benefits of the various options are; whether those gaining the benefits make the choices, bear the responsibility, accrue the costs, or take the risk; whether the benefits are widely or narrowly distributed