Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: HISTORIES OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN ASIA

Department: History

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Science and technology studies in East Asia is an expanding, multidisciplinary field. Sociologists, anthropologists, and philosophers have taken on questions of innovation and indigeneity to make sense of the parameters that define knowledge systems in Asia and the Global South. As industrial centers in East Asia continue to intensify, so does a swelling sentiment to capture and maintain national and cultural legacies. What do histories of science and technology in East Asia look like? What should they represent? To answer these questions, this course uses histories of scientific and technological artifacts to explore the boundaries between forms of knowledge and expertise that are both common and uncommon. Each week, we will pair an artifact or process with core literature from Science and Technology and Society (STS) studies to read again the grain and raise new historical questions. Rather than a comprehensive survey of scientific ideas alone, this course takes on histories of everyday objects and their practices to expand the scope of STS at large.