STS 6561

Technologies of Valuation

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

Valuation is a pervasive feature of contemporary life. Professors, start-ups, immigrants, intelligence, insurance premiums, and human lives: almost everything these days is subject to some form of more or less methodical assessment. This seminar examines valuation as a socio-technical phenomenon and asks how value and values are established, co-produced, maintained, subverted, institutionalized, and resisted. Through a mix of reading, writing, and activities, we shall engage with theoretical, historical, and contemporary studies of (e)valuation in science & technology studies (STS), but also draw on related areas like economic sociology, critical accounting studies, anthropology, and information science. Taken together, these ideas provide a powerful lens for analyzing what "counts" in cultures, organizations, and other forms of social life.

When Offered Spring.

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