Clare C. Jen's AMST 603 Syllabus

WMST xxx/AMST xxx
Knowledge Production:
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Studies of Science, Technology, and Representations

Spring Semester 2005

Instructor: Clare C. Jen
Time: Wednesday, 4:00-6:40
Place: Women's Studies Conference Room, Woods Hall
Prerequites: WMST 601: Feminist Theory and/or AMST 601

Course Description:
How do we know what we know? is a complicated inquiry that serves social justice purposes. What do we know? Who is this we? And, what do we mean by social justice?

This course is not a conventional entree to studies of science and technology. Black feminist thought is rarely thought to be in conversation with theories of agential realism in the sciences. In this class, we will have these conversations. We will ask how intersectionality and Third World feminism can inform studies of technological systems. We will ask how understanding technological systems can inform critiques of the prison-industrial complex. Through a variety of texts, this course will examine the politics, economics, and philosophies of knowledge production from an interdisciplinary perspective, utilizing scholarship from Women's Studies, American Studies, science studies, philosophy and public policy, and public health.

We will start the course with conversations of collaboration and the macro-micro processes that occur at such interfaces and interactions. We will examine concepts of standpoints and situated knowledges, contextualized within systems of oppression and resistance. We will look at the political processes of identification, classification and categorization and how these confer value to certain bodies and not to others. We will look at how objects (be it practice, public health regulation, technologies, or Third World Women) are made, and by whom, and for what purposes, and to whose gain and loss? A larger question that looms is: What does it mean to be human?, definitely a sci-fi preoccupation (think Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Blade Runner). We will explore how knowledge presented as scientific defines what it means to be human. Such inquiries are not without relevance, as questions of (universal?) humanity inform political interventions in the name of the public good and human rights.

Course Calendar and Readings:

WEEK TOPIC ASSIGNMENT

1 Trading Zone as the Classroom, Part I READINGS:
Peter Galison, Trading Zone: Coordinating Action and Belief (1997, abridged 1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 137-160.
Mario Biagioli, Introduction: Science Studies and Its Disciplinary Predicament, in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 1-11.
Joseph Rouse, Understanding Scientific Practices: Cultural Studies of Science as a Philosophical Program (1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 442-456.
Caren Kaplan and Inderpal Grewal, Transnational Practices and Interdisciplinary Feminist Scholarship: Refiguring Womens and Gender Studies, in Wiegman, ed., Womens Studies on Its Own (Duke UP, 2002), pp 66-81.

2 Trading Zone as the Classroom, Part II READINGS:
bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress (Routledge, 1994).
Minoo Moallem, Women of Color in the U.S.: Pedagogical Reflections on the Politics of the Name, Wiegman, ed., Women's Studies on Its Own (Duke UP, 2002), pp 368-382.

3 Knowledge Production, Personal Care-Abouts, and Envisioning Justice READINGS:
Sue P. Stafford, Epistemology for Sale, Social Epistemology, 2001, Vol. 15, No. 3, 215-230.
Robert E. Kohler, Moral Economy, Material Culture, and Community in Drosophila Genetics (1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 243-257.
Chandra Mohanty, Feminism without Borders (Duke UP, 2003), read Introduction: Decolonization, Anticapitalist Critique, and Feminist Commitments
Jack Knight, Social Norms and the Rules of Law, Trust in Society. Karen S. Cook (Ed.). NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001.
John Rawls, Justice as a Rational Choice Behind a Veil of Ignorance, James Sterba (Ed.). Justice: Alternative Political Perspectives, Pp 110-125.
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience. click here for reading
Martin Luther King, Letters from a Birmingham Jail. click here for reading

This week's reflection paper should focus on the student's own personal care-abouts, epistemic responsibilities, and intellectal virtures.

4 Ways of Knowing READINGS:
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (Routledge, 2000), Ch 1-2.
Donna Haraway, Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective (1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 172-188.
Karen Barad, Agential Realism: Feminist Interventions in Understanding Scientific Practices (1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 1-11.
Film: Robot Stories (2003)

5 Thinking About Knowing (Through Paradigms, Machines, and Representations) READINGS:
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. (The University of Chicago Press, 1996)
Sherry Turkle, What Are We Thinking about When We Are Thinking about Computers? (1995, abridged 1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 543-552.
Emily Martin, The Egg and the Sperm, in Price and Shildrick, eds., Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader (Routledge, 1999).
Emily Martin, Toward an Anthropology of Immunology: The Body as Nation State (1990), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 358-371.
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (Routledge, 2000), Ch 4-5.

6 Classifications and Monsters READINGS:
Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Starr, Sorting Things Out: Classifications and Its Consequences (Inside Technology) (MIT Press, 1999). Read Introduction, Ch 1, 6, 9, 10
Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts (Duke UP, 1996), Read Ch 3: "Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Asian American Differences."
Patrick E. Johnson, 'Quare' Studies, or (Almost) Everything I Know about Queer Studies I Learned From My Grandmother, Text and Performance Quarterly. 21(Jan 2001):1-25.
Film: Monster (2003)

7 Postcolonial Science?
subject:object :: presentation:representation READINGS:
Chandra Mohanty, Feminism without Borders (Duke UP, 2003), read Ch 1: Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses
Meera Nanda, The Epistemic Charity of the Social Constructivist Critics of Science and Why the Third World Should Refuse the Offer, in Koertge, ed., The House Built on Sand (Oxford UP), pp 286-311.

one of the following three:
Timothy Lenoir, Was the Last Turn the Right Turn?: The Semiotic Turn and A.J. Greimas (1992), The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 290-301.
Lorraine Daston, Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective (1992), The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 110-123.
Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media, (Routledge, 1994), Introduction and Ch. 1

8 Abandoning the Subject/Object as the Frame of Reference READINGS:
Bruno Latour, One More Turn After the Social Turn, The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 276-289.
Kandice Chuh, Imagine Otherwise on Asian Americanist Critique (Duke UP, 2003).
Chandra Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders (Duke UP, 2003), read Ch 9 "Under Western Eyes Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles."

9 Technological Systems READINGS:
Thomas P. Hughes, The Evolution of Large Technological Systems, The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 202-223.
Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades, The Emergence of a Competitiveness Research and Development Policy Coalition and the Commercialization of Academic Science and Technology, Science, Technology, & Human Values, Volume 21, Issue 3 (Summer, 1996), 303-339.
Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (Random House, May 1995). Read Parts 3 and 4.
Eric Bates, Private Prisons, The Nation (Jan. 5, 1998)
Angela Y. Davis, Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial complex, Color Lines. Fall, 1998.
Film: Metropolis (1927)

10 What Does It Mean to be Human? Part I READINGS:
Bruno Latour, War of the Worlds (Prickly Paradigm Press, 2002)
Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks (Grove Press, 1967). Read Introduction and Ch 8.
Lily E. Kay, In the Beginning Was the Word?: The Genetic Code and the Book of Life (1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 224-233.
Paul Rabinow, Artificiality and Enlightenment: From Sociobiology to Biosociality, in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 407-416.
Film: Contact (1997)

11 What Bodies Matter? READINGS:
Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals (Aunt Lute Book, 1980)
Rosemarie Garland Thompon, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (Columbia UP, 1996) Read Chapter 2: Theorizing Disability
Film: Love & Diane, (2002)

12 Scientists Talk Back: Academic Integrity, Legitimacy, and Authority READINGS:
Noretta Koertge,ed. A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about Science (Oxford UP, 1998)

optional: Lili Kim, I Was [So] Busy Fighting Racism that I Didn't Even Know I Was Being Oppressed as a Woman!": Challenges, Changes, and Empowerment in Teaching About Women of Color, NWSA Journal; June 22, 2001.

13 What Does It Mean to Be Human? Part II READINGS:
Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power (University of California, 2003)
Film: Journey to the Golden Triangle (2003)

14 Case Study: Disease Control Measures and Programs READINGS:
Haraway, Donna. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness . Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003.
Henson S.J., Loader R.J., Swinbank, A., Bredahl, M. and Lux N. Impact of sanitary and phytosanitary measures on developing countries, Department of Agricultural and Food Economics, The University of Reading, 2000. click here for reading
World Health Organization. Understanding the BSE Threat. October 2002. click here for reading
Food and Agricultural Organization. Avian Influenza. Animal Health Special Report.

15 Final Class: Conference and Film Festival Final Project Due

Course Requirements: Class members will complete weekly readings and film assignments, engage weekly in seminar discussions, write weekly reflection papers, frame class discussion, present an autobiographical statement, and complete a final project.

Weekly Participation in Discussions: Information and discrete bits of data are gleaned from the solitary perusal of pages in books. Knowledge is produced in the interactions and collaborations between beings. The time we have in and out of class together is privileged, and we recognize that class members have different types and levels of investments in varying course materials. A winner-takes-all mentality does not jive here, as we are a community and are all affected by thoughts and actions. For these reasons, conversations, not debates, are valued. Contestations are meaningful and significant, but only if respect is shared amongst participants. Engagement, sharing and "listening to hear" are all mandatory practices.

Weekly Reflection Papers: Class members will thoughtfully reflect on readings and films in short 2-3 page papers. Think of these weekly submissions as exercises, as chances to analyze and synthesize, ask questions, make connections, and formulate ideas. At the start of each class, each class member will partner with 1-2 others for 10-15 minutes and share their reflections and thoughts.

These papers are to be submitted in hard copy and posted on the course's WebCT space by 12:00pm the day of class.

Discussion Framing: Each class member will have the formal opportunity to strategically intervene in this course's trajectory. This is your opportunity to frame class materials according to your personal care-abouts, direct class discussion using methods in line with your epistemic responsibilities and intellectual virtues. Please produce a handout to distribute. Feel free to highlight passages of interest, raise questions of concern, put forth narrow and broad inquiries. When it is your week to frame class discussion, your handout exempts you from that week's reflection paper.

Autobiographical Statement: This course is explicitly feminist and anti-racist in its approach to systems, representations and knowledges. Implicit in such critiques is recognizing that class members have both different and similar histories and experiences. How we are located shapes our investments, intentions and frustrations. Each member will prepare an autobiographical statement of approximately 10 minutes to be presented to the class. View this statement as an exercise to explore your subjectivity within your communities. This classroom is a community. Share, as much as your feel comfortable (this is not to be invasive!), the politics of your location.

WebCT: This class will utilize WebCT as an additional space for conversation. Weekly reflection papers will be posted. Class members will partner up on WebCT where they will read and respond weekly to each other's papers and postings. Final projects will also be uploaded onto WebCT.

Final Project: This course's final project is unscripted. The most important component of this project is to utilize the course materials in ways that are useful to you. Throughout the semester, the class will plan a conference. Brainstorm themes, structure, audience, events, etc. Classmates can team up for paper panels and workshops. In that this course has a film component, members can put together short film festivals around specific themes. A presentation of your final project will be uploaded onto WebCT.

Books are available for purchase at Vertigo Books. Two copies of articles or book chapters will be available on reserve in the Women's Studies conference room. Please sign out articles for copying and return them within two hours. You do not have to buy all of the books as some only have a few chapters assigned. *Recommended books to purchase as the entire text, or most of the entire text, is assigned.

1. *Haraway, Donna. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003.

2. *Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power (University of California, 2003)

3. *Noretta Koertge, A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about Science (Oxford UP, 1998)

4. *Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals (Aunt Lute Books, 1980)

5. Rosemarie Garland Thompon, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (Columbia UP, 1996)

6. *Bruno Latour, War of the Worlds (Prickly Paradigm Press, 2002)

7. Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks (Grove Press, 1967)

8. Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish

9. *Kandice Chuh, Imagine Otherwise on Asian Americanist Critique (Duke UP, 2003).

10. Chandra Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders (Duke UP, 2003)

11. Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (Routledge, 2000)

12. Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Starr, Sorting Things Out: Classifications and Its Consequences (Inside Technology) (MIT Press, 1999).

13. *Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. (The University of Chicago Press, 1996)

14. *bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress (Routledge, 1994)

15. *Mario Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999)

Films will be screened the Monday night (7pm, Location TBA) before the Wednesday it is to be discussed. If you cannot attend the screening, films are available at Hornbake as I will place my personal copies on reserve.

Robot Stories
Monster
Metropolis
Contact
Love & Diane
Journey to the Golden Triangle

Grading: Your grade will be calculated roughly as follows:
Weekly Reflection Papers, 30%
Final Project, 30%
Weekly Participation in Seminar, 30%
Discussion Framing, 10%

WEEK	TOPIC	ASSIGNMENT
1	Trading Zone as the Classroom, Part I	READINGS: Peter Galison, Trading Zone: Coordinating Action and Belief (1997, abridged 1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 137-160. Mario Biagioli, Introduction: Science Studies and Its Disciplinary Predicament, in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 1-11. Joseph Rouse, Understanding Scientific Practices: Cultural Studies of Science as a Philosophical Program (1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 442-456. Caren Kaplan and Inderpal Grewal, Transnational Practices and Interdisciplinary Feminist Scholarship: Refiguring Womens and Gender Studies, in Wiegman, ed., Womens Studies on Its Own (Duke UP, 2002), pp 66-81.
2	Trading Zone as the Classroom, Part II	READINGS: bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress (Routledge, 1994). Minoo Moallem, Women of Color in the U.S.: Pedagogical Reflections on the Politics of the Name, Wiegman, ed., Women's Studies on Its Own (Duke UP, 2002), pp 368-382.
3	Knowledge Production, Personal Care-Abouts, and Envisioning Justice	READINGS: Sue P. Stafford, Epistemology for Sale, Social Epistemology, 2001, Vol. 15, No. 3, 215-230. Robert E. Kohler, Moral Economy, Material Culture, and Community in Drosophila Genetics (1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 243-257. Chandra Mohanty, Feminism without Borders (Duke UP, 2003), read Introduction: Decolonization, Anticapitalist Critique, and Feminist Commitments Jack Knight, Social Norms and the Rules of Law, Trust in Society. Karen S. Cook (Ed.). NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001. John Rawls, Justice as a Rational Choice Behind a Veil of Ignorance, James Sterba (Ed.). Justice: Alternative Political Perspectives, Pp 110-125. Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience. click here for reading Martin Luther King, Letters from a Birmingham Jail. click here for reading This week's reflection paper should focus on the student's own personal care-abouts, epistemic responsibilities, and intellectal virtures.
4	Ways of Knowing	READINGS: Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (Routledge, 2000), Ch 1-2. Donna Haraway, Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective (1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 172-188. Karen Barad, Agential Realism: Feminist Interventions in Understanding Scientific Practices (1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 1-11. Film: Robot Stories (2003)
5	Thinking About Knowing (Through Paradigms, Machines, and Representations)	READINGS: Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. (The University of Chicago Press, 1996) Sherry Turkle, What Are We Thinking about When We Are Thinking about Computers? (1995, abridged 1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 543-552. Emily Martin, The Egg and the Sperm, in Price and Shildrick, eds., Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader (Routledge, 1999). Emily Martin, Toward an Anthropology of Immunology: The Body as Nation State (1990), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 358-371. Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (Routledge, 2000), Ch 4-5.
6	Classifications and Monsters	READINGS: Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Starr, Sorting Things Out: Classifications and Its Consequences (Inside Technology) (MIT Press, 1999). Read Introduction, Ch 1, 6, 9, 10 Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts (Duke UP, 1996), Read Ch 3: "Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Asian American Differences." Patrick E. Johnson, 'Quare' Studies, or (Almost) Everything I Know about Queer Studies I Learned From My Grandmother, Text and Performance Quarterly. 21(Jan 2001):1-25. Film: Monster (2003)
7	Postcolonial Science? subject:object :: presentation:representation	READINGS: Chandra Mohanty, Feminism without Borders (Duke UP, 2003), read Ch 1: Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses Meera Nanda, The Epistemic Charity of the Social Constructivist Critics of Science and Why the Third World Should Refuse the Offer, in Koertge, ed., The House Built on Sand (Oxford UP), pp 286-311. one of the following three: Timothy Lenoir, Was the Last Turn the Right Turn?: The Semiotic Turn and A.J. Greimas (1992), The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 290-301. Lorraine Daston, Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective (1992), The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 110-123. Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media, (Routledge, 1994), Introduction and Ch. 1
8	Abandoning the Subject/Object as the Frame of Reference	READINGS: Bruno Latour, One More Turn After the Social Turn, The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 276-289. Kandice Chuh, Imagine Otherwise on Asian Americanist Critique (Duke UP, 2003). Chandra Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders (Duke UP, 2003), read Ch 9 "Under Western Eyes Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles."
9	Technological Systems	READINGS: Thomas P. Hughes, The Evolution of Large Technological Systems, The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 202-223. Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades, The Emergence of a Competitiveness Research and Development Policy Coalition and the Commercialization of Academic Science and Technology, Science, Technology, & Human Values, Volume 21, Issue 3 (Summer, 1996), 303-339. Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (Random House, May 1995). Read Parts 3 and 4. Eric Bates, Private Prisons, The Nation (Jan. 5, 1998) Angela Y. Davis, Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial complex, Color Lines. Fall, 1998. Film: Metropolis (1927)
10	What Does It Mean to be Human? Part I	READINGS: Bruno Latour, War of the Worlds (Prickly Paradigm Press, 2002) Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks (Grove Press, 1967). Read Introduction and Ch 8. Lily E. Kay, In the Beginning Was the Word?: The Genetic Code and the Book of Life (1998), in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 224-233. Paul Rabinow, Artificiality and Enlightenment: From Sociobiology to Biosociality, in Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (Routledge, 1999), pp 407-416. Film: Contact (1997)
11	What Bodies Matter?	READINGS: Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals (Aunt Lute Book, 1980) Rosemarie Garland Thompon, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (Columbia UP, 1996) Read Chapter 2: Theorizing Disability Film: Love & Diane, (2002)
12	Scientists Talk Back: Academic Integrity, Legitimacy, and Authority	READINGS: Noretta Koertge,ed. A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about Science (Oxford UP, 1998) optional: Lili Kim, I Was [So] Busy Fighting Racism that I Didn't Even Know I Was Being Oppressed as a Woman!": Challenges, Changes, and Empowerment in Teaching About Women of Color, NWSA Journal; June 22, 2001.
13	What Does It Mean to Be Human? Part II	READINGS: Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power (University of California, 2003) Film: Journey to the Golden Triangle (2003)
14	Case Study: Disease Control Measures and Programs	READINGS: Haraway, Donna. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness . Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003. Henson S.J., Loader R.J., Swinbank, A., Bredahl, M. and Lux N. Impact of sanitary and phytosanitary measures on developing countries, Department of Agricultural and Food Economics, The University of Reading, 2000. click here for reading World Health Organization. Understanding the BSE Threat. October 2002. click here for reading Food and Agricultural Organization. Avian Influenza. Animal Health Special Report.
15	Final Class: Conference and Film Festival	Final Project Due

WMST xxx/AMST xxx Knowledge Production: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Studies of Science, Technology, and Representations

WMST xxx/AMST xxx
Knowledge Production:
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Studies of Science, Technology, and Representations