Nov 22, 2024
OHIO University Undergraduate Catalog 2024-25
HIST 2905 - History of Technology in Society
From hand tools, stirrups, and windmills to lasers, batteries, and biotechnology, human history and technology can only be understood together. This course explores the ways in which technology has shaped human society. It focuses on important themes, including the Industrial Revolution, infrastructure, and the historical relationship between technological experts (including engineers, technologists, and scientists), society, and the state. The course pays particular attention to technology’s social and historical consequences; the human and environmental contexts of technological infrastructures; and historical debates over what constitutes an ethical model of technological innovation. It covers the historical and modern development of professions based on technology, including those requiring licensure. In this way, the course provides a critical perspective for an informed approach to technology and society in the modern world.
Credit Hours: 3
OHIO BRICKS: Arch: Connected World
Thematic Arches:
- Science & Technology
General Education Code (students who entered prior to Fall 2021-22): 2SS
Repeat/Retake Information: May be retaken two times excluding withdrawals, but only last course taken counts.
Lecture/Lab Hours: 3.0 lecture
Grades: Eligible Grades: A-F,WP,WF,WN,FN,AU,I
Course Transferability: OTM course: TMSBS Social & Behavioral Sciences, OTM course: TMSBS Social & Behavioral Sciences
College Credit Plus: Level 1
Learning Outcomes:
- Students will be able to critically state, describe, and consider the social, cultural, economic, geographic, or political impact of human technological innovation with reference to specific historical moments.
- Students will be able to identify major technological developments in world history and describe the particular circumstances affecting them.
- Students will be able to analyze and state their own conclusions about the mutually contingent relationship between technology and society using a variety of examples and case studies drawn from the history of technology and engineering.
- Students will be able to apply the logic and methods of empirical inquiry as applied to the social, cultural, environmental, economic, geographic, or political contexts of technology.
- Students will be able to explain how historical and critical interpretations of technological change contribute to an informed approach to technology and society as a responsible citizen.
- Students will be able to explain the historical context of engineering and technology ethics as well as the evolving place of technological professions in the local, national, and global community.
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