STS200F

Until relatively recently, "innovation" was a dangerous affront to the authority of tradition. Now, every consumer product claims to be innovative -- but we don't tend to view the state as an innovator, even though federal agencies invented the internet (in 1969) and granted Tesla $466 million (in 2010). In this course, we will revisit old technologies when they were new, and consider other ways to think innovation outside the paradigm of Western technology. We will ask: how did innovation come to be privileged over the skillful reproduction ("imitation") of canonical models? How is innovation constructed through discourse? Who gets to be called "innovative?" That is, how is innovation a geopolitical, racialized, and gendered category? The course aims to undo any sense of innocence that the term "innovation" may hold for you, and offer instead a more diverse set of perspectives on how to make society better.