Teaching

Throughout my teaching career, I have experienced the rewards and the challenges of designing new and non-standard courses, without the benefit of well-established reading lists or exemplary syllabi handed down by predecessors. The subject matter I teach, too, changes from year to year, reflecting new developments in science, technology, law, and policy—the four anchors of my research. My courses draw students from backgrounds in science and engineering as well as social sciences and humanities. My reading lists are typically “interdisciplinary” in that they draw from many different fields. In all of my courses, a major aim is to teach students how to see the world differently through minds conditioned by insights from science and technology studies (STS). I therefore often sprinkle my courses with readings about contemporary events, so that students can test their intuitions by analyzing actual happenings in the world.

Some of the courses I have taught since coming to Harvard have become canonical in that former students are using my syllabi as departure points for their own courses. Other courses are still, delightfully, works in progress. Courses taught at Harvard and (once) at MIT (syllabi available on request) include:

  • Science, Power and Politics (IGA 513)
  • Environmental Politics (ESPP 78)
  • Technology, Environment, and Society (ESPP 77)
  • Expertise in Science and Law (HLS 2082)
  • Law, Science and Society in America (SOCIOL 180)
  • Expertise and Democracy in Science and Technology Policy (STS 910) [MIT course]