Module overview
Science has become an indispensable component of our modern world and scientists are often held in a place of unquestioned privilege. From electrical power to space travel, to artificial intelligence, scientific developments have radically altered the ways in which we interact with each other, and understand our world and very own human nature. Yet science is fundamentally a cultural activity which is embedded within a wider social context. In recent years the often unquestioned privilege of science has been questioned more and more on both national and international scales as deep-rooted issues of gender inequality, racism colonialism, and so on, have emerged leading to increased distrust in the authority of science.
Given this situation what can we learn about the present state from the past? Shifting away from older intellectual scholarly approaches which only focused on the ‘great discoveries’, in this module we take a much broader historical and critical approach placing science it into its proper social and global context. In doing so, this module asks the question - how were scientific developments of the past shaped and/or influenced by religion, culture, politics, gender and empire? This module will use case studies to highlight overarching themes that address the challenges, complexities and inequalities which have emerged within the history of science.