Social Study of Science and Technology
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this graduate seminar on science studies, surveying canonical and recent theories and methods for analyzing how scientific knowledge is made and circulated. Discussions organize around the concept of reproduction in four senses: scientific reproduction (how lab and field results are replicated), social reproduction (how knowledge and relations persist across generations), biological reproduction (management of genetic material), and electronic reproduction (how information is copied through transcription, simulation, and computation). The course maps intersections among social, biological, and electronic life through assigned readings and seminar discussion. Materials include the syllabus, reading lists, and assignment descriptions as published by MIT. There is no fee to access the course materials, and no certificate is offered through OCW. Best suited to students with background in sociology or philosophy of science.