New Class Offered Spring 2014

DRAFT SYLLABUS ONLY (11/7/13) New Class Offered Spring 2014

STS/PAPA 6664: Advanced Topics in Science and Technology Policy: STS and Justice

Instructor: Prof. Barbara Allen [email protected] Monday 7-9:00PM at Northern Virginia Center in Falls Church

(Note: First 3 weeks of the class will be held online and the remaining 12 weeks will meet in-person at NVC in Falls Church for a 2-hour discussion seminar with a required online discussion forum)

Course Rationale: Most policies, procedures, rules and regulations have embedded within them some conception of social justice. As scholars and practitioners in the policy arena, a better understanding of the myriad contemporary framings of justice will enable one to articulate, defend and operationalize desired outcomes more effectively.

Course Overview and Objectives

The goal of this course is to examine issues in science and technology through contemporary lenses of justice in order to better understand the social-ethical dimensions of policy practices. The first six weeks of the course will introduce students to theoretical work by contemporary justice scholars in political philosophy, philosophy, sociology and other disciplines. Although the course will start with understanding Rawls’ conception of justice, the course will focus on more contemporary framings including justice as capabilities, recognition and participatory parity.

The second part of the course will focus on policy practices and allied procedures, such as institutional processes, agenda setting, classifications, etc., and explore how normative positions intersect with technoscience and related areas of expertise. Using a number of case studies we will examine the implicit and explicit concepts of justice that are embedded in the institutional arenas of S+T and analyze their possible effects, outcomes, tendencies or alignments. The S+T cases may include topics such as: environment, climate, energy, reproductive science, genomics, disabilities, food/agriculture/animals, transportation, IT , etc. While most weeks’ themes will be set in advance, students will be surveyed at the beginning of the class DRAFT SYLLABUS ONLY (11/7/13) for what topic or topics that they would like to see covered as there is some flexibility toward the end of the course.

The third and last part of the class will provide students with an opportunity to research and write on their own project. Students will be expected to choose a topic or case study (in consultation with the instructor) and use one or more of the lenses of justice to think with. The final project can be an analytical paper examining a topic or case from a variety of perspectives or it can be an analysis of a case that develops a set of policy recommendations. The student can fashion the final paper as an exploration of a potentially larger research project, or as an article to be submitted to an academic journal, or as part of their PhD dissertation/MS thesis. The student will be expected to present their paper to the class in a “conference presentation” format.

Course Requirements/Grading:

(This section in progress but the final grade will be based on class attendance/participation as well as a final paper and online participation)

Required Book to Buy: All required reading can be downloaded from the Scholar site. However, you must buy a copy of Schlosberg’s, Defining Environmental Justice as we will read almost the entire book so I cannot photocopy. Additionally, this book can be used as a resource throughout the class as it contains good definitions, explanations and applications of the contemporary justice theories we will be using

Class Schedule and Readings

Part 1 of Class: Foundations and Contemporary/Emerging Theories of Justice

Week 1: Jan. 27, Introduction (online) Readings: Mamo and Fishman (2013), “Why Justice: Special Issue on the Entanglements of Science, Ethics and Justice” Science Technology and Human Values 38(2), plus additional reading TBD.

Week 2: Feb. 3, Rawls: Justice as fairness/distributive justice (online) Readings: Rawls, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical” Philosophy and Public Affairs; Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy (chapters 2+3); Brighouse, Justice (chapter 3); Fraser, Scales of Justice (chapter 3); Sen, The Idea of Justice (chapter 2); DRAFT SYLLABUS ONLY (11/7/13) Week 3: Feb. 10, Beyond distributive justice -recognition and difference (online) Readings: Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (chapter 1+4); Young, Throwing Like a Girl (chapter 7); Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition (pp. x-xxi); Fraser, Justice Interruptus (chapter 8);

From Week 4 to the end of the term the class will meet in-person in Falls Church

Week 4: Feb. 17, Justice and representation Readings: Fraser, Justice Interruptus (chapter 1); Olson in Olson (ed.), Adding Insult to Injury (pp. 246-272); Fraser, Scales of Justice (chapter 2+4)

Week 5: Feb. 24, Capabilities approach to justice Readings: Sen, Development as Freedom (chapter 3); Sen, The Idea of Justice (chapter 11 to pg 263); Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities (chapters 1,2,4,8); Robeyns, “The Capability Approach: A Theoretical Survey” Journal of Human Development

Week 6: March 3, Summary of justice concepts/Environmental Justice: analytical and applied uses of justice concepts Readings: Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice (chapters 1,2,3,5,6)

Spring Break: March 8- 16 Assignment due after break: 2 page narrative summary (or outline) of the research paper you will write. More instructions will be given.

Part 2 of Class: Topical studies + Case studies: practicum using justice concepts

Week 7: March 17, Environment+justice: intersecting science and technology Readings: Ottinger, Allen, Chapman, Democratizing Technology (chapter 8)

Week 8: March 24, Disaster, response, recovery, and justice Readings: TBD

Week 9: March 31, Energy justice Readings: Selection of articles in Science as Culture (2013), vol. 22(2)

Week 10: April 7, Health, medicine, bodies and justice Readings: ST+HV issue, Brown et. al; Di Chiro in Sandler and Pezzulo(eds.), Environmental Justice and Environmentalism (chapter 9); Schell and Tarbell, “A Partnership Study of PCBs and the Health of Mohawk Youth” Environmental Health Perspectives;

Week 11: April 14, Food, agriculture and justice DRAFT SYLLABUS ONLY (11/7/13) Readings: Kinchy, Seeds, Science and Struggle (chapter 5); Harrison, Pesticide Drift (chapter3); Lievanos, London and Sze in Ottinger and Cohen (eds.),Technoscience and Environmental Justice (chapter 8)

Week 12: April 21, Disability and justice or other topic(s) TBD by the class Readings: Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice (chapters 2+3);

Week 13: April 28, Class Presentations

Week 14: May 5, Class Presentations

Final paper due Sunday, May 11 (before midnight) in Dropbox