In Science, Technology & Humanities I, we use literary texts, narrative history, documentary evidence, film, music, and cross-cultural references to contextualize the emergence of scientific, technological, and humanistic developments to the eighteenth century.
We begin by reading sections of Virgil’s The Georgics (29 BCE), where he describes humans as beginning to cultivate culture, while at the same time learning to cultivate land:
“Then followed other arts; and everything
was toil, relentless toil, urged on by need.”
Our inquiries and discussions during the course will ask,
- What were those needs?
- How have those needs developed over time?
- How have they been represented in art, literature, music, and science?
- What are our collective, communal needs now?
- How do science, technology, and humanism shape or serve those needs?
Our work in the course includes discussion, in-class writing, exams, and a final research project on a course-related topic that interests you.
Our collective learning outcomes:
- Our work will demonstrate how foundational works in the humanities illuminate enduring human concerns and the intellectual and cultural traditions within which these concerns arise
- Our work will demonstrate a developing understanding of how historical and cultural contexts, individual works, and the development of humanities over time, interact
- Our work will demonstrate our ability to critically employ concepts, theories, and methods of analysis used in the humanities to interpret and evaluate enduring human concerns
- Our work will critically reflect on the formation of human goals and values, and will articulate an understanding of the creativity reflected in works of the humanities that influenced the formation of those values