Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Making Knowledge
Full course description
Climate denialism, flat earthers, the anti-vaxx movement: we live in a world where “scientific facts” are increasingly doubted. But what makes a scientific fact, and what makes you doubt it? And how has fact-making and doubting changed with digitalisation? In this course, you will look at the ways that scientific knowledge is and has been made, disemminated, and (re)used in the past and present.
Course objectives
At the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Explain the ways that knowledge and ignorance are made and how they have changed.
- Differentiate between the geographical, sociological, chronological aspects of making knowledge and doubt.
- Analyse how digitalisation has influenced these aspects and ways of making knowledge and ignorance.
- Evaluate your explanations of knowledge- and doubt-making and improve upon them.
Prerequisites
None
Recommended reading
Burke, P. (2012). A Social History of Knowledge II: From the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia. Polity Press.
Meyer, E. T., & Schroeder, R. (2015). Knowledge Machines: Digital Transformations of the Sciences and Humanities. MIT Press.
DSO2001
Period 1
2 Sep 2024
25 Oct 2024
ECTS credits:
7.0Instruction language:
EnglishCoordinator:
- M.S. Schleper
Teaching methods:
PBL, Lecture(s)Assessment methods:
Presentation, PortfolioKeywords:
history, knowledge, infrastructures, misinformation, open science, exhibitions, publishing, digitalization, Science and technology studies