Description
[cross-listed with LIT 3908] Although its roots, techne (“craft”) and logos (“words about,” “logic of”) can be traced to ancient Greece, the word technology wasn’t used to describe the mechanic arts until the early twentieth century. Leo Marx has argued that when we attribute social change to technology—“Technology is changing how we work and learn”—the term is unclear and that makes it difficult for us to reason ethically about how to structure our country, our culture, and our lives. In this course we’ll seek clarity on a number of questions: What do we mean when we say “technology”? How much agency does technology have in shaping our world and history? How can we wield and develop technologies ethically, and how is our sense of ethics affected by our development and use of new technologies?