Remaking Nature: The Politics of Biotechnology - ARTS3243
Faculty: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
School: School of Humanities and Languages
Course Outline: School of Humanities & Languages
Campus: Sydney
Career: Undergraduate
Units of Credit: 6
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3
Enrolment Requirements:
Prerequisite: 48 UOC overall, including 6 UOC at level 1 and 6 UOC at level 2 in one of the following streams, Environmental Humanities
CSS Contribution Charge: 2 (more info)
Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule
Further Information: See Class Timetable
View course information for previous years.
Description
Subject Area: Environmental Humanities
This course examines what many have called the ‘century of the gene’ and its potential for reshaping the environment and humanity. Biotechnology can be understood as a social, political and cultural project as much as a technical one. In this course we consider these issues through the prism of contemporary environmental thinking, drawing on a multidisciplinary tool kit from science studies (STS), cultural and political theory, and sociology. We retrace the emergence of biotechnology from its early imaginings through its emergence as a real project in the twentieth century, and explore a range of contemporary case-studies such as GM food, gene therapy, bio-prospecting, nanotechnology and synthetic biology. You will have the opportunity to select issues such as these for deeper exploration in group projects involving independent research and analysis.