Course syllabus for Technology and culture

Course syllabus adopted 2021-02-15 by Head of Programme (or corresponding).

Overview

  • Swedish nameTeknik och kultur
  • CodeTEK566
  • Credits7.5 Credits
  • OwnerMTS
  • Education cycleFirst-cycle
  • ThemeMTS 7.5 c
  • DepartmentTECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT AND ECONOMICS
  • GradingTH - Pass with distinction (5), Pass with credit (4), Pass (3), Fail

Course round 1

  • Teaching language Swedish
  • Application code 99118
  • Maximum participants35
  • Open for exchange studentsNo

Credit distribution

0121 Take-home examination 7.5 c
Grading: TH		7.5 c

In programmes

Examiner

Go to coursepage (Opens in new tab)

Eligibility

General entry requirements for bachelor's level studies

Aim

This course explores the interplay of technology and culture in different societal and historical contexts. It takes as its point of departure that technology is a cultural expression, and in order to understand the development, uses and consequences of technology, we have to place it in its cultural and social context. During the course, the students will, among other things, be given tools to critically analyse and reflect on how cultural contexts and processes influence their work as engineers.

Learning outcomes (after completion of the course the student should be able to)

- problematise the concepts of culture and technology.
- identify, analyse and problematise the interplay between culture, technology and science in different historical and societal contexts.
- critically analyse how technology, science and environment are represented in different cultural expressions, mainly in popular culture.
- reflect on how cultural and social contexts and processes influence their own work as engineers.
- give constructive feedback on the texts of their peers.
- observe the ethical problems that development and use of technology may be associated with

Content

Culture is a vast concept with many definitions. In this course, we will focus on the so called humanist concept of culture, in other words, the art forms or other activities that express our common values, behavioural patterns, social institutions and traditions. This can for example include: writing, visual art, film, computer games, media (entertainment, news, and social media), sport and fashion. Politics and technology are sometimes mentioned as part of this concept of technology. The perspectives, ideas and images diffused through cultural expressions permeate our everyday lives and attitudes to different issues, including the societal role of technical development. These cultural expressions therefore become central arenas for the societal discussion on the possibilities and limitations of science and technology. Furthermore, cultural expressions have helped forming our image of the engineer and the scientist, as well as our perception on how technological and scientific ideas are generated, spread and used. Ethical discussions have often taken their starting point in popular culture, and the perspectives that are represented there influence which issues we find important and/or problematic, as well as which technologies that are deemed more or less dangerous. With the help of cultural expressions (such as social media of today) groups who do not usually have a voice in the debate, and whose needs are not always met by technoscientific knowledge and development, have a possibility to join the debate and be seen as users of technology. Through this, they can challenge the prevailing view on which political and ethical aspects of technological development that should be problematized. But how can we analyse the images and narratives that we are fed with on a daily basis from a critical perspective. Whose stories are we seeing/hearing/reading about, and how do these stories influence our views on science, technology and society? How do researchers influence the knowledge that is spread through cultural expressions, which may later set the agenda for technoscientific research and development?

Organisation

The course consists of lectures and seminars. The course is given in Swedish, but does include lectures in english by guest lecturers.

Literature

Announced at course start on the course homepage.

Examination including compulsory elements

During the course, the students will have mandatory exercises to complete each week (written or orally).The course is examined through the completion of these exercises and a take home exam.
One or several of the exercises can be adapted to the specific study subject of each student's engineering program.

The course examiner may assess individual students in other ways than what is stated above if there are special reasons for doing so, for example if a student has a decision from Chalmers on educational support due to disability.