Inhalt

[ GS-ISE ] KV Introduction into Gender Studies in Science and Engineering

Versionsauswahl
Workload Education level Study areas Responsible person Hours per week Coordinating university
3 ECTS B1 - Bachelor's programme 1. year (*)Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung Waltraud Ernst 2 hpw Johannes Kepler University Linz
Detailed information
Original study plan Bachelor's programme Chemistry 2018W
Objectives Students gain insight into accounts of gender studies in science and technology development. They acquire important gender competence, which is indispensable for international acknowledged research, including science and engineering. The goal of this interdisciplinary course is to acquaint students with approaches of gender research in their specific areas. An analytically well-grounded insight in social gender relations enables students to understand, reflect and act responsibly within the specific gender structures of their disciplines.
Subject The course gives an overview of central debates and results of gender studies in science and engineering. Topics of science and technological artefacts are analysed regarding their meaning for gender relations. Theories as the co-production of gender and technology or science are introduced: How do social ideas about gender influence scientific theories and methods as well as technological development – and vice versa? Further, the course teaches the history of women scientists and engineers and offers epistemological and philosophical reflexions of situated knowledge.

Summer term: A special focus lies on Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence.
Winter term: A special focus lies on Life Sciences and Chemistry.
Criteria for evaluation Attendance and participation in discussion; reading of the assigned literature; written exam on the content of the course at the end of the semester.
Methods Research results are presented that unpack mechanisms and background assumptions of gender relations in science and engineering. Students are encouraged to pursue self-learning in this field. Several approaches to integrating aspects of gender and diversity in research and development in innovative ways will be discussed.
Language English
Study material
  • Waltraud Ernst/Ilona Horwath (eds.): Gender in Science and Technology. Interdisciplinary Approaches, Bielefeld: transcript 2014.
  • Knut Sorensen/Wendy Faulkner/Els Rommes: Technologies of Inclusion. Gender in the Information Society, Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press 2011.
  • Virginia Eubanks: Automating Inequality. How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor, New York: St. Martin’s Press 2018.
  • Catherine D'Ignazio/Lauren F. Klein: Data Feminism, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2020
  • Anne Fausto-Sterling: Sexing the Body. Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, New York: Basic Books 2000.
  • Susanne Lettow (ed.): Reproduction, Race, and Gender in Philosophy and the Early Life Sciences, Albany: State University of New York Press 2014.
  • Londa Schiebinger: Plants and Empire. Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World, Cambridge MA: Harvard UP 2004.
  • Deboleena Roy: Molecular Feminisms. Biology, Becomings, and Life in the Lab, Seattle: University of Washington Press 2018.
Changing subject? No
Further information The course is designed for students of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, but it can also be attended by incoming students who are interested in the field.
Corresponding lecture GS-TNE: KV Gender Studies TNF - Einführung (3 ECTS)
On-site course
Maximum number of participants 100
Assignment procedure Assignment according to priority