Technology and Society

Catalog description

How has technology shaped human society? And how have human beings shaped technology in return? This course investigates these questions across history—from stone tools, agriculture, and ancient cities to windmills, cathedrals, and the printing press; from railroads, electricity, and airplanes to atom bombs, the internet, and the dishwasher. In analyzing these tools, we will explore the dynamic relationships between technological systems and the social, political, religious, artistic, and economic worlds in which they emerged. We will also pay particular attention to technology's effects, asking both who benefited from and who was harmed by technological change. The course will spend time discussing the ways in which historians have expanded the kinds of evidence we use to capture a wider and more diverse range of participants in past technological activity. We will also discuss the challenges involved in making the history of technology, once largely concerned with developments in North America and Europe, a truly global endeavor. By the end of the course, students will be able to reflect critically on how humanity chooses which technologies to exploit and how human societies have been transformed by these choices. This course meets the Dietrich Gen Ed "Humanities" requirement. Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/history/