The Science, Technology and Society Graduate Certificate is designed for students already enrolled in a graduate degree program at Georgia Tech. This certificate is for graduate students who would like to demonstrate additional competence in some aspect of STS or special competence in STS in their home discipline. The certificate is open to students in good standing in any graduate program at Georgia Tech.
The 12-credit certificate program helps students to:
- Understand the social, cultural, and epistemic dynamics of science and technology
- Explore these dynamics across world societies and cultures
- Develop sensitivity to issues of gender, race, and justice across areas of knowledge, including: engineering, medicine, environment, cognition, security, innovation, design
- Employ STS approaches as scholars or practitioners (e.g. engineers, scientists, or policy makers)
Program of Study (Four Courses Total):
- Core Course: One Required
- HTS 6743 / PUBP 6743 / LMC 6743: STS Core Seminar
- HTS 6118: Science, Technology and the Economy
- HTS 6121 / INTA 8803: Science, Technology and Security
- HTS 6123 / LMC 8803: Social and Cultural Studies of Biomedicine
- HTS 6124: Science and Technology Beyond Borders
- PUBP 6748 / LMC 6748: Social Justice, Critical Theory and Philosophy of Design
- LMC 6749 / PUBP 6749: Feminist Theory and STS
- Up to One Other Elective, Subject to Student Interest and STS Coordinator Approval
- Many appropriate courses are offered across the Ivan Allen College and the Institute, for example, CS 8893: Cognition and Culture
STS COURSES FOR SPRING 2024
HTS 6124: Science and Technology Beyond Borders, Instructor: Amit Prasad
Tuesdays 5 – 7:30 p.m.
In the new millennium, science and technology (S&T) suffuse and connect the everyday lives of people across the globe as never before. Along with the depth of S&T’s global impact on everyday life, the shifting global landscape of S&T, and with it rising global competition and tensions, are also strikingly evident. This course, which draws on a range of histories and sociologies of S&T, has two broad goals: First, to explore the global and transnational landscape of S&T. Second, to critically investigate the impact of shifting international landscape of S&T and whether and how West-centric historiographies and sociologies of S&T continue to influence techno-scientific practices of the present. For example, does the diffusion theory of science and technology fold the descriptions and analyses of the shifting global contours of S&T into a West-centric imaginary. And, if this is so, how do we reorient our imaginaries and practices to better understand and explain not just the circulations of S&T at present, but also the erased connected histories that cut across commonly accepted borders of the nation and/or west/non-west.
HTS 8803: Computing in Context [HTS Special Topics], Instructor: Helen Anne Curry
Thursdays 5 – 7:30 p.m.
This course explores the social, political, ethical, and environmental dimensions of computer development and use, from the introduction of mechanical computing technologies through contemporary big data infrastructures and artificial intelligence.
Course description: It’s obvious that today our lives, societies, and even our planet are shaped by computer technologies. But how exactly did we get here? And what effects has the ever-increasing capacity of these technologies—and our ever-increasing dependence on them—had for individuals, communities, nations, and the environment? This graduate seminar will explore answers to these questions through the history of computer and information technologies. Through the study of how contemporary computing capacities came to be, we will understand better the contested pathways and politics of technical innovations; the effects of escalating computing power on gender, race, and labor relations; the social and environmental footprint of digital infrastructures; and the many meanings ascribed to computers over time and across borders.
Who this class is for: Graduate students in the humanities and social sciences who are interested in the history, sociology, and anthropology of science and technology; graduate students in public policy and international affairs who want to think about the role of digital technologies in shaping politics and economics at different scales; and graduate students in computer science and engineering who design and build computer and information technologies and wish to take a holistic perspective on their work and its broader impacts.