Writing and Critical Thinking: Space, Power and Pleasure

Introduction

Introduction

In this module, we will investigate how technoscience shapes contemporary forms of power, space, and everyday pleasure. Technoscience describes the potent combination of technological innovation with scientific methods that allows us to better know and structure our world. Government and industry decision-making processes rely upon technoscientific techniques of quantification, calculation, and standardisation. How are authoritative facts produced and used to manage people, things, and spaces? How do perceptions of scientific and technological achievement influence policies? Everyday human activities are increasingly structured through scientific knowledge and complex arrays of technology. Gamification through smart devices and self-monitoring via portable tech offer new pleasures and new possibilities for living. To what extent are we changed by the technologies we invent? Who in society benefits from data and expertise? And what impact do sophisticated new technologies have on people and their environments? This module draws on perspectives from the broad interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies to reflect on questions relating to the power of technoscientific knowledge, the role of experts and innovators in creating spatialised networks, and the pleasures and dangers of technologically enhanced living.

Learning Objectives:

As a WCT module, the primary goal of the class is to learn rhetorical skills and conventions in academic writing. By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Analyse, compare, and evaluate arguments in diverse academic texts
  • Construct a well-defined research problem and explain its significance to readers
  • Develop clearly articulated, evidence-based arguments
  • Constructively engage with the module’s themes using pertinent sources and citations
  • Provide constructive feedback on peers’ writing and demonstrate the ability to revise one’s own writing following peer and instructor feedback

Assessment

Assessment

Attendance and participation (15%): Active participation in class discussions is essential and attendance is mandatory. Students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss and critically analyse the readings for the assigned meeting day. In the event of an illness or an emergency, please confer with the instructor by email prior to the missed class. More than two absences will significantly impact your grade.

Writing Assignments (75%):

  • Reflections (10%)
  • Paper 1 - Expository Essay, 1200 words max. (20%)
  • Research Proposal (10%)
  • Paper 2 - Research Essay, 3000 words max. (35%)

Final Presentation (10%): In the final week, each student will give a short, effective presentation based on the topic of their final research paper.

Readings

Readings

(Please note that this is a tentative schedule of readings. The final syllabus will be uploaded onto LumiNUS.)

Module writing textbooks

Booth, Wayne C. et al. The Craft of Research, 4th ed., Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Cyndee Maxwell. They Say, I Say: The moves that matter in academic writing. New York: Norton, 2014.

Unit 1: Power

This unit introduces students to the study of science and technology as social practice. We will explore how facts are given power and authority to make claims about the world through the disciplinary practices of expert communities.

Bauchspies, Wenda et al. Science, Technology, and Society: A Sociological Approach. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, Ch. 2 “Cultures of Science.”

Shapin, Steven. “The Invisible Technician.” American Scientist 77, no. 6 (1989): 554-563.

Begley, Sharon. "The Science Wars." In The Gender and Science Reader. Edited by Muriel Lederman and Ingrid Bartsch, 114-118. London: Routledge, 2001.

Daston, Lorraine. “Objectivity and the escape from perspective.” In The Science Studies Reader, ed. Mario Biagioli, 110-123, London: Routledge, 1998.

Cohn, Carol. “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals.” Signs 2, no. 4 (1987): 687-718. [selection]

Porter, Theodore. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. “Introduction: Cultures of Objectivity” (p. 3-8) and Ch. 1. “A World of Artifice” (p. 11-32).

Unit 2: Space

In the second unit, we will examine how technoscience has been used to order space in colonial and post-colonial Asia.

Harding, Sandra. “Counterhistories.” In The Postcolonial Science and Technology Reader, ed. Sandra Harding, 33-38. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.

Harun, Hairuidin B. “Colonialism and Science in the Malay World.” In Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, ed. Helaine Selin, 188-191. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2008.

Foucault, Michel. “Governmentality.” In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, eds. Graham Burchell et al., 87-104. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Simone, AbdouMaliq. “Cities of Uncertainty: Jakarta, the Urban Majority, and Inventive Political Technologies.” Theory, Culture and Society 30 (2004): 243-263.

Halpern, Orit et al. “Test-bed Urbanism.” Public Culture 25 (2013): 273-306.

Unit 3: Everyday Pleasure

The final unit of the module addresses how technoscience enables everyday pleasures, conveniences, and interpersonal connections.

Le Guin, Ursula. A Rant about “Technology,” (2004). Available: http://ursulakleguinarchive.com/Note-Technology.html

Schull, Natasha Dow. “Data for life: Wearable technology and the design of self-care.” Biosocieties 11 (2016): 317-333.

Gershon, Ilana. The Breakup 2.0 : Disconnecting Over New Media. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010. [Selection]

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books, 2011. [Selection]

Wilson, Ara. “Medical Tourism in Thailand.” In Asian Biotech: Ethics and communities of fate, 118-143, edited by Fischer, Michael MJ, Joseph Dumit, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, and Charis Thompson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.

Fearnley, Lyle. “Wild Goose Chase: The Displacement of Influenza Research in the Fields of Poyang Lake, China.” Cultural Anthropology 30, no. 1 (2015): 13-15.

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