EXTRA CREDIT ASSIGNMENTS Handout:
Understanding Technological Society, Humanities 201, Fall 2016, Prof. Edel
This course offers several opportunities for extra credit.
Extra Credit Values: It is important to note that the maximum extra credit towards your final grade is 10 points, if a student completes additional extra credit beyond that amount it may modify or replace required graded work such as required response reading. Example: if a student had completed 10 points of extra credit and an additional optional reading response write-up, that additional response write-up would be able to replace a missing or poor quality required write-up.
- Complete written reading responses for weeks that have quizzes and no required writing response. Optional reading response write-ups should be 500-700 words and follow the same format and content guidelines as the required write-ups. Optional weekly reading responses have the same point value as the required responses, 1-3 points towards the final grade depending on quality of writing and engagement with materials communicated. An optional extra credit reading response beyond 10 points of extra credit adds to or replaces a required reading response.
- Students may do an optional long form (6-8 Pages) research paper on the social and technical development and impact of a technology within our culture. Students should see the professor in office hours to discuss this option. A Research Paper is worth up to 10 points of your grade. If this option is completed prior to the final exam any extra credit beyond 10 points will positively modify the final exam grade.
- Students may meet with the professor to request recommended readings on a subject of their interest or to determine if a reading they found would be acceptable as an extra credit reading. Extra credit readings may be worth up to 3 points with a written response. Generally extra credit readings will be a short book, 2-3 serious articles, or 2-3 chapters of a long book. List of some suggested optional extra credit readings appears below (Author/Year/Title):
Medicine/Biology/Psychology:
Blum, Deborah. 2011. Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection (2nd Ed).
Epstein, Steven. 1996. Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the politics of Knowledge.
Leroi, Armand Marie, 2005. Mutants: On Genetic Variety and The Human Body
Global Trade/World Systems:
Kurlansky, Mark. 1998. Cod: A biography of the Fish that changed the world
Levinson, Marc. 2008. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the world Smaller and the world Economy Bigger.
Ethnographies:
Nagle, Robin. 2014. Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the trucks with the sanitation workers of New York City
Traweek, Sharon. 1992. BEamtimes and Lifetimes: The world of High Energy Physicists.
Law & Justice:
Lessig, Lawrence. 2006. Code (2.0)
Lynch, Michael. 2008. Truth Machine: the contentious History of DNA fingerprinting.
Monahan, Torin. 2006. Surveillance and Security: Technological Politics and Power in Everyday Life.
Handbooks & Textbooks:
Bijker, W.E., Hughes, T.P. & Pinch, T. 1987. The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the
Sociology and history of technology.
Pinch, T. & Collins, H.M. 1998. The Golem At large: What you should know about technology
Pinch, T. & Swedberg, R. 2008. Living in a Material World: Econimic sociology meets science and technology
Winner, Langdon. 1989. The Whale and the reactor: A search of limits in an age of High Technology.