SOC 368 Technology and Modern Society (Not offered 2006-2007; to be offered 2007-2008)
With expanding access to and use of the internet, controversial developments in
such biotechnical practices as the cloning of mammals, rapid advances in
various forms of telecommunication, and the increasing sophistication of
technological weaponry in the military, the triumph of technology remains a
defining feature of modern life. For the most part, modern humans remain
unflinchingly confident in the possibilities technology holds for continuing to
improve the human condition. Indisputably, technology has benefited human
life in innumerable ways. However, as with other features of modernity,
technology has also had significant, albeit largely unanticipated, social
consequences. Working within a sociological paradigm, this course will focus
on the less often examined latent functions of technology in modern society. It
will consider, for example, the social effects of technology on community life,
on privacy, and on how people learn, think, understand the world, communicate,
and organize themselves. The course will also examine the effects of technology
on medicine, business, education, and the military and will consider such
countercultural reactions to technology as the Luddite movement in
early-nineteenth-century England and the U.S. agrarian movements of the
twentieth century.
Requirements: two short papers, a midterm exam, and a final exam.
No prerequisites.