Agency and Structure

Peter Taylor
STS 662 Fall 1992
Fall. 4 credits. Limited to 15 students

Course description

Issues in social theory, or more broadly, social thought, raised by historical and contemporary studies of science and technology. Focal theme for Fall 1992: Agency and Structure -- connecting individual action to social structure and the related problem of connecting micro and macro levels of analysis.
Prerequisite: STS 442 or permission of the instructor.

Course goals

Through this course you should develop an appreciation of the conceptual order (affinities, tensions & oppositions) among the different approaches to incorporating social processes into accounts of the dynamics of science. At the same time you should clarify how you want to inject the theoretical insights into your own practice in the area of science studies, i.e. the course is not just theory for its own sake.

Requirements

1. Reading, attendance, and participation in the discussion.
2. Lead (probably with one other person) the discussion for 2-3 seminars.
3. Each week the first part of the seminar will be reading the 1 page reflection/discussion provocations that students bring to class (at least 8 times in the semester.) Bring enough copies for everyone in the seminar.
4. The last part of the seminar each week will consist of 1 student giving a short presentation on the progress of their term paper research (see 5.), conforming to an ideal schedule of progress toward the final term paper.
5. The term paper should delve deeper into some area of social theory and analyze its (actual or potential) injection into science studies. The final product should be15-20 pages, properly referenced. Toward this end you must also submit during the semester the following:
Topic & bibliography 10/6
Outline 10/27
Draft 11/25
Final version (revised
following comments) 12/11
6. At least 2 references that you suggest for addition to the syllabus, annotated to indicate where they fit in chronologically and conceptually.

Grading

Class participation 10%
Discussion leading 20
Submission of reflection/discussion provocations 10
Progress reports on term paper 10
Term paper 40
Bibliographic suggestions 10

Auditors will be allowed provided that they do the reading and participate in class, including take their turn at leading discussions and submit reflection/discussion provocations.

Syllabus and readings -- subject to revision.

Most of the primary readings will be available as a xerox packet from Gnomon copy on Eddy Street for about $50 (including copyright permissions). I will provide additional readings from time to time (marked PT), costing about $5 for the semester. Marked references (*) are also available on reserve, in Olin 601 unless otherwise noted. Recommended extra readings will be on reserve, by sign-out from Clark 630, or just on the library shelves, as indicated.

1. Introduction: Definitions, approaches, related problems (macro/micro), contrasting positions
Garfinkel, Alan. "Introduction & Chaps. 1-4." In Forms of explanation, New Haven: Yale University press, 1981.

Gieryn, Thomas F. "Riding the action/ structure pendulum with those swinging sociologists of science." In 20th anniversary of Cornell University Program on Science, Technology & Society in Ithaca, edited by S. S. Jasanoff, 1992 (*, also in Clark 630).

Levins, Richard and Richard Lewontin. "Introduction." In The Dialectical Biologist, Pp. 1-5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985 (Clark 630).

Gieryn & Pinch's sociology of science course bibliographies (copies in Clark 630)

2. Social determination I: Interests
Barnes, B. "On the 'hows' and 'whys' of cultural change (Response to Woolgar)." Social Studies of Science 11 (1981): 481-498 (PT).

Hessen, B. "The social and economic roots on Newton's 'Principia'." In Science at the crossroads, ed. J. Needham and P. G. Werksey. Pp. 149-212. London: Frank Cass, 1971 (*).

MacKenzie, D.A. "Statistical theory and social interests: a case study." Social Studies of Science 8 (1978): 35-83 (PT).

Woolgar, S. "Interests and explanation in the social study of science." Social Studies of Science 11 (1981): 365-394 (PT).

Recommended:
Longino, Helen. Science as social knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.

3. Social determination II: Structure
Misa, Thomas J. "How machines make history, and how historians (and others) help them to do so." Science, Technology and Human Values 13 (3&4, 1988): 308-331.

Wright, Erik Olin. "Reflections on Classes." Berkeley Journal of Sociology XXXII (1987): 19-49.

McLaughlin, P. Obstacles to a new sociology of agriculture: The persistence of essentialism. 1989. Manuscript

Recommended:
Markus, Gyorgy. "Editorial preface & Preface." In Language and Production, Pp. vii-xv. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1986 (*).

Hacking, Ian. "Why does language matter to philosophy?" In Why does language matter to philosophy?, Pp. 157-187 + notes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975 (Clark 630).

Baudrillard, Jean. The mirror of production. St. Louis: Telos Press, 1975.

4. Part A Directed autonomy
Yoxen, Edward. "Life as a productive force: Capitalising the science and technology of molecular biology." In Science, Technology and the Labour Process, Marxist Studies Vol. 1, ed. L. Levidow and R. Young. Pp. 66-122. London: CSE Books, 1981.

Abir-Am, P. "The discourse of physical power and biological knowledge in the 1930s: A reappraisal of the Rockefeller Foundations's 'policy' in molecular biology." Social Studies of Science 12 (1982): 341-382.

Recommended:
Abir-Am, P. "Beyond deterministic sociology and apologetic history: Reassessing the impact of research policy upon new scientific disciplines (Reply to Fuerst, Bartels, Olby and Yoxen)." Social Studies of Science 14 (2, 1984): 252-63.

Part B Structuration I

Abir-Am, Pnina G. "Biotheoretical Gathering, Trans-Disciplinary Authority and the Incipient Legitimation of Molecular Biology in the 1930s: New Perspective on the Historical Sociology of Science." History of Science XXV (1987): 1-70.

5. Structuration II
include Sewell¹s article on structure in AJS
Giddens, A. "Agency, institution, and time-space analysis." In Advances in social theory and methodology, ed. K. Knorr-Cetina and A. Cicourel. Pp. 161-174 Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981 (*).

Hagendijk, Rob. "Structuration theory, constructivism, and scientific change." Pp. 43-66 in Theories of science in society, ed. S. E. Cozzens and Thomas F. Gieryn. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990 (*).

Sclove, Richard. "Chapter 2" In Technology and Freedom: Towards a democratic politics of technology, architecture and design. Manuscript.

Recommended :
Sclove, chapters 3 & 19 (Clark 630)

Callinicos, Alex. "Conclusion." In Making history: Agency, structure, and change in social theory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988 (Clark 630).

Willis, Paul. Learning to Labour. Farnborough, England: Saxon House, 1977, Pp.1-51, 89-159.(*, also in Clark 630).

6. Local/situational constructivism & ethnomethodology

Knorr-Cetina, Karin. "Introduction: The micro-sociological challenge of macro-sociology: towards a reconstruction of social theory and methodology." In Advances in social theory and methodology, ed. K. Knorr-Cetina and A. Cicourel. Pp. 1-47. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981 (*).

Knorr-Cetina, Karin. "The ethnographic study of scientific work: Towards a constructivist interpretation of science." In Science observed: Perspectives on the social study of science, ed. K. Knorr-Cetina and M. Mulkay. Pp. 115-140. London: Sage, 1983 (*, Olin 604).

Lynch, Michael, Eric Livingston, and Harold Garfinkel. "Temporal order in laboratory work." In Science observed: Perspectives on the social study of science, ed. K. Knorr-Cetina and M. Mulkay. Pp. 205-238. London: Sage, 1983.

7. Actors in/on networks & neo-Hobbesianism
Callon, M. and B. Latour. "Unscrewing the big Leviathin." In Advances in social theory and methodology, ed. K. Knorr-Cetina and A. Cicourel. Pp. 277-303. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981 (*).

Latour, Bruno. "Give me a laboratory and I will raise the world." In Science observed: Perspectives on the social study of science, ed. K. Knorr-Cetina and M. Mulkay. Pp. 141-170. London: Sage, 1983.

Latour, Bruno. "Irreduction of 'the sciences'." In The Pastuerization of France, Pp. 212-236. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.

Latour, Bruno. "The impact of science studies on political philosophy." Science, Technology & Human Values 16 (1, 1991): 3-19.

Schuster, J. "Bruno's (no history required) tour of the past." University of Wollongong Science & Technology Studies, Working Paper No. 1,1991 (PT).

Assumed background (if you haven't read it, do so, but read the articles first):
Latour, B. Science in Action. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987.

Recommended:
Hull, David. Chaps. 8 & 10. In Science as a Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

8. Individualism
Lukes, Steven. "Methodological individualism reconsidered." In The philosophy of social explanation, ed. A. Ryan. Pp. 119-129. Oxford: Oxford University press, 1973.

Sober, Elliott, Andrew Levine, and Erik Olin Wright. "Marxism and methodological individualism." New Left Review 162 (March/April, 1987): 67-84.

Marginson, S. "The economically rational individual." Arena 84 (1988): 105-114 (PT).

Foucault, Michel. "Questions of Method: An Interview with Michel Foucault." I&C 8 (1981): 3-14.

Henriques, Julian, Wendy Holloway, Cathy Urwin, Couze Venn, and Valerie Walkerdine. "Constructing the subject." In Changing The Subject, ed. Julian Henriques, Wendy Holloway, Cathy Urwin, Couze Venn, and Valerie Walkerdine. Pp. 92-118. London: Methuen, 1984 (*).

Recommended:
Burawoy, M. "Marxism without micro-foundations." Socialist Review 89 (2, 1989): 53-86 (Clark 630).

Przeworski, A. "Class, production and politics: A reply to Burawoy." Socialist Review 89 (2, 1989): 87-111 (Clark 630).

Wright, Erik Olin. "Reflections on Classes." Berkeley Journal of Sociology XXXII (1987): 19-49 (see week 3)
.
Burawoy, Michael. "Limits of Wright's Analytical Marxism and an Alternative." &
Wright, Erik Olin. "Reply to Burawoy's comments on 'Reflections on Classes'." Berkeley Journal of Sociology 32 (1987): 51-72 (Clark 630).

Woods, Ellen. "Rational choice Marxism: Is the game worth the candle?" New Left Review 177 (Sept/Oct 1989): 41-88 (Clark 630).

9. Biography

Young, Robert M. "Darwin and the genre of biography." In One Culture, ed. G. Levine. Pp. 203-224. 1987.

Moore, James. "Darwin of Down: The evolutionist as squarson naturalist." In The Darwinian Heritage, ed. D. Kohn. Pp. 435-481. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.

Taylor, P.J. "Technocratic optimism, H.T. Odum and the partial transformation of ecological metaphor after World War 2." Journal of the History of Biology 21 (1988): 213-244.

Richards, Evelleen and John Schuster. "The feminine method as myth and accounting resource: A challenge to gender studies and social studies of science." Social Studies of Science 19 (697-720, 1989):

Keller, Evelyn Fox. "Just what is so difficult about the concept of gender as a social category." Social Studies of Science 19(1989): 721-724..

Shapin, Steven. "Who was Robert Boyle? The creation and presentation of an experimental self." (Manuscript,1991) & Shapin, Steven. "New experiments ethico-theological touching the spring of a natural philosophical life." B. J. Hist. Sci. (1992): (in press) (PT)

Recommended:
Young, Robert M. "Biography: The basic discipline for human science." Free Associations 11 (1988): 108-130 (Clark 630).

Sulloway, Frank. "Review of Bowlby's Charles Darwin: A new life, New York Review of Books, Oct. 10, '91(Clark 630).

Kondo, Dorinne K. Chapter 1 of Crafting selves: Power, gender, and discourses of identity in a Japanese workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Fischer, M. "Autobiographical voices (1,2,3) and mosaic memory." Autobiography and Post-modernism. Ed. K. Ashley. 1992 (Clark 630).

Calhoun, Craig. "Morality, identity, and historical explanation: Charles Taylor and the sources of the self." Sociological Theory 9 (2, 1991): 232-263 (Clark 630).

10. Social worlds & ecologies of knowledge

Clarke, Adele. "A social worlds research adventure: The case of reproductive science." In Theories of science in society, ed. S. E. Cozzens and T. F. Gieryn. Pp. 15-42. Bloominton: Indiana University Press, 1990 (*).

Rosenberg, C. "Wood or trees? Ideas and actors in the history of science." Isis 79 (1988): 565-570.

Taylor, P. "Re/constructing socio-ecologies: Systems dynamic modeling of nomadic pastoralists in sub-Saharan Africa." In The Right Tool for the Job: At work in the twentieth century life sciences, ed. A. Clarke and J. Fujimura. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Taylor, P. "Building on the metaphor of construction in analytic science studies," Ms.

Wolf, E. "Afterword." In Europe and People without History. Berkeley: U. Calif. Press, 1982.

Recommended:

Bourdieu, Pierre. "Men and machines." in K. Knorr-Cetina and A. Cicourel (eds.). Pp. 304-318. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981 (*, Clark 630).

Star, S. "Introduction: The sociology of science and technology." Social Problems 35 (1988): 197-205 (Clark 630).

Sørensen, Knut, and Nora Levold. "Tacit networks, heterogeneous engineers, and embodied technology." STHV 17.1 (1992): 13-35.

Lynch, William. "Arguments for a non-Whiggish hindsight: Counterfactuals and the sociology of knowledge." Social Epistemology 3 (4, 1989): 361-365.

Lynch, William. "Politics in Hobbes' mechanics: The social as enabling." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (1991?):

11. Unruly complexity
Fish, Stanley. "Anti-Foundationalism, Theory Hope, and the Teaching of Composition." In Doing What Comes Naturally:Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies, ed. Stanley Fish. Pp. 343-355. Durham: Duke University Press, 1989.

Haraway, Donna. "Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s." Socialist Review 80 (1985): 65-107.

Taylor, Peter. "Mapping ecologists' ecologies of knowledge." In Philosophy of Science 1990, Vol. 2: 95-109

Recommended:

Davis, Mike. "Chinatown, Part Two? The Internationalization of downtown Los Angeles." New Left Review 164 (July/August, 1987): 65-86 (Clark 630).

Moore, Sally F. "Epilogue: From types to sequences: social change in anthropology." In Social facts and fabrications: 'Customary law on Kilimanjaro, 1880-1980. Pp. 320-329. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986 (Clark 630).

Penley, Constance and Andrew Ross. "Cyborgs at large: Interview with Donna Haraway." Social Text 25/25(1990): 8-23 (Clark 630) & afterword from Penley & Ross, Technoscience (Clark 630).

Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. "Nature and Intentions of the Argument: Explanatory and Programmatic Themes." In False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy, Pp. 1-41. Part I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987 (Clark 630).

Yurick, Sol. Behold metatron, the recording angel. New York: Semiotext(e), 1985 (Clark 630)

12. Gender

Drop Burrows
Burrows, Andrea. "Varying views of science: Feminist accounts compared to women scientists' accounts." (Manuscript,1991)

Haraway, Donna. "Situated knowledge: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective." Feminist Studies 14 (3, 1988): 575-599.

Haraway, Donna. "'Gender' for a Marxist dictionary: The sexual politics of a word." In Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature, Pp. 127-148. New York: Routledge, 1991 (*, Uris).

Keller, E. "Feminist perspectives on science studies." Science, Technology & Human Values 13 (1988): 235-249.

Sydie, R. A. "Summary." In Natural women, cultured men, Pp. 121-123. New York: New York University Press, 1987.

Fraser, Nancy and Linda J. Nicholson. "Social criticism without philosophy: An encounter between feminism and postmodernism." In Feminism/ Postmodernism, ed. Linda J. Nicholson. Pp. 19-38. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Recommended:

Haraway, Donna. "Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s." Socialist Review 80 (1985): 65-107 (see previous week).

Dugdale, Ann. "Keller's Degendered Science: Notes and Discussion." Thesis Eleven 21 (1988): 117-127 (Clark 630).

Wylie, Alison and Okruhlik. "Philosophical feminism: A bibliographic guide to critiques of science." Resources for Feminist Research 19 (2, 1990): 2-36 (PT).

Adams, E. R. and G.W. Burnett. "Scientific vocabulary divergence among female primatologists working in East Africa." Social Studies of Science 21 (3, 1991): 547-560 (Clark 630).

13. Power

Clark, Colin and Trevor Pinch. "Micro-sociology and micro-economics." In Structures and action, ed. N. Fielding. Pp. 119-141. Sage, 1988 (PT).

Foucault, Michel. "The subject and power." In Art after modernism, ed. B. Wallis. Pp. 417-433. Boston: Godine, 1984.

Gaventa, John. "Power and participation." In Power and powerlessness: Quiescence and rebellion in an Appalachian valley, Pp. 1-32. Urbana: University of Illinois

Recommended:

Rouse, Joseph. "Toward a political philosophy of science." In Knowledge and power: Toward a political philosophy of science, Pp. 248-265. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987 (Clark 630)