everything.study
STS.049

The Long War Against Cancer

3-0-9 units. HASS-H; CI-H · Undergraduate

Examines anticancer efforts as a critical area for the formation of contemporary biomedical explanations for health and disease. Begins with the premise that the most significant implications of these efforts extend far beyond the success or failure of individual cancer therapies. Considers developments in the epidemiology, therapy, and politics of cancer. Uses the history of cancer to connect the history of biology and medicine to larger social and cultural developments, including those in bioethics, race, gender, activism, markets, and governance.

Spring 2004 · Technology and Gender in American History

Topics

  • Introduction
  • Gender and History
  • How Technologies are Gendered I
  • How Technologies are Gendered II
  • Advertising Gender
  • Redefining Gender by Way of Technology: Workplaces
  • Redefining Gender by Way of Technology: Workplaces (cont.)
  • Technology in the Home
  • Technology in the Home (cont.)
  • Women in Technology: Medicine
  • Women and Engineering at MIT
  • Engineering and Masculinity
  • Engineering and Masculinity II
  • Women in Technology: Computers
  • Gender and Aviation
  • Identity and Consumer Culture I
  • Identity and Consumer Culture II
  • Automobility, Freedom, and Constraint I
  • Automobility, Freedom, and Constraint II
  • Production and Consumption in Modern America
  • Presentations

Readings

  • Readings from Gender and Technology may be found in: Mohun, Arwen, ed. Gender and Technology: A Reader . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780801872594.
    Listed reading
  • ses #: 2 · TOPICS: Gender and History · Readings: McGaw, Judith. “No Passive Victims, No Separate Spheres: A Feminist Perspective on Technology’s History.” In In Context: History and the History of Technology. Edited by Stephen Cutcliffe and Robert Post. Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1989, pp. 172-191. ISBN: 9780934223034.
    Reading assignment
  • McGaw, Judith. “Why Feminine Technologies Matter.” In Gender and Technology, pp. 13-36.
    Listed reading
  • Oldenziel, Ruth. “Why Masculine Technologies Matter.” In Gender and Technology, pp. 37-71.
    Listed reading
  • Herzig, Rebecca. “Situated Technology: Meanings.” In Gender and Technology, pp. 72-97.
    Listed reading
  • Maines, Rachel. “Situated Technology: Camoflage.” In Gender and Technology, pp. 98-119.
    Listed reading
  • ses #: 5 · TOPICS: Advertising Gender · Readings: Ewen, Stuart. Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of Consumer Culture . New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1977. ISBN: 9780070198463.
    Reading assignment
  • Lerman, Nina. “Industrial Genders: Constructing Boundaries.” In Gender and Technology, pp. 123-152.
    Listed reading
  • Mohun, Arwen. “Industrial Genders: Home/Factory.” In Gender and Technology, pp. 153-176.
    Listed reading
  • Lipartito, Ken. “When Women Were Switches: Technology, Work and Gender in the Telephone Industry, 1890-1920.” American Historical Review 99 (Oct. 1994): 1074-1111.
    Listed reading
  • Edwards, Paul. “Industrial Genders: Soft/Hard.” In Gender and Technology, pp. 177-203.
    Listed reading
  • ses #: 8-9 · TOPICS: Technology in the Home · Readings: Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave . New York, NY: Basic Books, 1985. ISBN: 9780465047321.
    Reading assignment
  • ses #: 10 · TOPICS: Technology in the Home (cont.) · Readings: Finish More Work for Mother .
    Reading assignment
  • ses #: 11 · TOPICS: Women in Technology: Medicine · Readings: Saetnan, Ann Rudinow, Nelly Oudshoorn, and Marta Kirejczyk, eds. Bodies of Technology: Women’s Involvement in Reproductive Medicine . Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780814250501.
    Reading assignment
  • ses #: 13 · TOPICS: Women and Engineering at MIT · Readings: Gibson, Lorna, et. al. “Report of the School of Engineering.” Cambridge, MA: MIT, March 2002. ( PDF ) ↗
    Reading assignment
  • ses #: 14 · TOPICS: Engineering and Masculinity I · Readings: Oldenziel, Ruth. Making Technology Masculine: Men, Women, and Modern Machines in America, 1870-1945 . Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004, first half. ISBN: 9789053563816.
    Reading assignment
  • ses #: 15 · TOPICS: Engineering and Masculinity II · Readings: Finish Making Technology Masculine.
    Reading assignment
  • Light, Jennifer. “Programming.” In Gender and Technology . pp. 295-326.
    Listed reading
  • Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet . New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1997, selections. ISBN: 9780684833484.
    Listed reading
  • ses #: 18 · TOPICS: Identity and Consumer Culture I · Readings: Peiss, Kathy. Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture . New York, NY: Henry Holt, 1999, first half. ISBN: 9780805055511.
    Reading assignment
  • ses #: 19 · TOPICS: Identity and Consumer Culture II · Readings: Finish Hope in a Jar.
    Reading assignment
  • ses #: 20 · TOPICS: Automobility, Freedom, and Constraint I · Readings: Scharff, Virginia. Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age . New York, NY: Free Press, 1992, first half. ISBN: 9780826313959.
    Reading assignment
  • ses #: 21 · TOPICS: Automobility, Freedom, and Constraint II · Readings: Finish Taking the Wheel.
    Reading assignment
  • ses #: 22 · TOPICS: Production and Consumption in Modern America · Readings: Horowitz, Roger, and Arwen Mohun, eds. His and Hers: Gender, Consumption, and Technology . Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1998, first half. ISBN: 9780813918020.
    Reading assignment
  • ses #: 23 · TOPICS: Production and Consumption in Modern America · Readings: Finish His and Hers.
    Reading assignment

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: None Acad Year 2027-2028: U (Spring) Acad Year 2028-2029: Not offered 3-0-9 units. HASS-H; CI-H

Sources