19-478 Special Topics:Engineering and Social Justice
9 units, Carnegie Mellon University
Have you ever wondered about the legacy and role of engineers in the perennial fight for social justice, and what you can do as engineers to help promote a more equitable world This course will bring together a rich variety of theories and methods towards understanding how these core questions have shaped our profession and what such questions mean for its future. We will first explore the legacy of engineering with particular attention to how the role and interaction of engineering with wider society has evolved over time. We will then explore the positive and negative consequences of that legacy on a variety of engineered systems such as electricity, water, bridge, healthcare, internet, artificial intelligence, and social media, to name a few. Finally, we will read and practice different methods for identifying and remediating equity issues in our engineering systems. Throughout, we will incorporate a rich array of theories and authors not usually considered in engineering courses such as institutional, network, social movement, actornetwork, and justice theories, amongst others. We will also be placing a strong emphasis on BIPOC scholarship all too often neglected in this space. This also means we will use a variety of materials and pedagogies to impart concepts ranging from the traditional e.g., journal articles and book sections to the unconventional e.g., short video clips, activities, spoken word, poetry, and storytelling. By the end of the course, students will a have a more holistic understanding of our legacy as engineers on issues of social justice and inequality b recognize and identify positive and negative consequences of this legacy and c understand and deploy methods that help make equity a more central point of concern and driver of decisionmaking in our engineered systems.
Prerequisites: none listed
Courseweave needs JavaScript to show sections, workloads and planning tools.