Welcome to Centre for Society, Technology and Values

The course has been designed to provide a framework or set of intellectual tools to help students understand and evaluate technological change. These tools will be applied to the development of information technology, its interaction with society, and possible future senarios. Selected topics include understanding digitization as culture, visions of the future and perils of prediction, as well as issues related to application areas such as the home, manufacturing, office work, design and services, education, and law. The course will also consider some of the privacy and personal dignity issues associated with information technology.

Biotechnology and society affect each other in ways that increase in number and significance each year. The purpose of this course is to understand the developing relationship between biotechnology and society. A variety of areas are examined, including agriculture, human fertility, eugenics, medicine, social policy, crime, security, and so on. Our concern is with how biotechnology is (or will be) making the world better or worse, and for whom. Some emphasis is placed on materials pertinent to Canada.

Instructor: Cameron Shelley

This course examines the interaction of the technologies developed by a culture with the values and social organization of that culture. The course exposes students to various definitions of society, technology and values, and it presents alternative views about how the three interact. These views are then applied to a number of spheres of influence, including patterns of employment and the role of work; medicine and health; polity and economy; sustainable development and the environment.