Technology in organizations and society

Target:
This course has a broad target as it addresses themes that may be of interest for people working in different areas and types of organizations and are interested in developing a critical approach to questions related to scientific and technological development. This course targets a public interested in reading, exploring, thinking, and discussing some of the most controversial contemporary challenges that affect every-day public and private life. The course requires participants to apply an interdisciplinary perspective grounded on classical as well as innovative studies on the relationship between science, technology, and society. Pre-knowledge in any field is not required.
 
Description:
The society we live in poses complex and unexpected challenges every day: climate change, technological and scientific poorly controlled development; health crises; poverty; gender inequalities, among others. These challenges point out that social, political, economic, and cultural processes are interrelated and shape each other generating both possibilities and exclusions.
 
To approach knowledgeably, critically, and responsibly the complexity of the contemporary world, (future) citizens need analytical tools that, however, cannot be found in one single discipline. Increasingly, the dilemmas that confront people, whether in government, industry, politics, or daily life, cut across the conventional lines of academic training and thought.
 
To promote cross-disciplinary integration, civic engagement, and critical thinking, this course offers an overview of cutting-edge concepts and critical perspectives to identify and evaluate the benefits and the risks, the perils and the promises, of advances in science and technology.
 
The overarching goal of the course is to develop the capacity to unpack the complexity generated by the multiple relationships between science, technology, and society and stimulate a creative, critical, and ethical approach to it. Instead of asking "How to solve problems" this course invites to ask "Which associations generate them?", "Who benefits from specific solutions?" and "Who gets left behind?", "What is progress and how do science and technology contribute to or detract from our higher goals?", to mention a few.
 
Lectures are published on a platform and dedicated forums are created for discussions with teacher(s) and among students. Along with academic literature (scholarly articles and books), the course material is complemented by further materials (for example science- and technology-related popular movies or novels, scientific documentaries, talks, webinars) to further stimulate the participants' engagement throughout the course, and eventually engender a competent view of the surrounding technoscientific world, in its multifarious expressions and languages.