Sustainability

This course surveys different views about technology: what counts as technology, what role it plays in society and human development, what benefits it might promote, and what obvious or hidden effects deserve criticism. The course's readings and discussions prompt reflection on the purpose and consequences of technology for your own life, what possibilities it opens and forecloses, and how it modifies, sometimes irreversibly, your environment. Required readings may include current news articles and blog posts, science fiction, historical analyses of technological change, and philosophical investigations of the concept of technology.