Requirements
Completing the Technology & Society Ph.D. Emphasis Program
To complete the Ph.D. Emphasis in Technology and Society, students must complete the following actions:
See below for detailed information about each stage: Application, Coursework, ABD, and Graduation.
Application to the Technology & Society Optional Emphasis Program requires that you already be enrolled and in good standing in a Ph.D. program (or Masters-Ph.D. program) of one of the following participating departments: Anthropology; Communication; Computer Science; English; Film and Media Studies; History; Media, Arts & Technology; Political Science; or Sociology.
To apply to participate in the T&S emphasis, students submit an Intent to Enroll Form, stating proposed or completed coursework choices and dissertation topic, if known.
See below in the Coursework section for courses that automatically apply toward the emphasis. Please note that this listing (and the Graduate Catalog listing for the Emphasis) are the only valid sources of courses that can be counted toward the Emphasis without an approved petition. Other prior versions of CITS or T&S websites or pages are invalid. Students wishing to apply another course toward the Emphasis must submit a Course Petition Form, and are highly encouraged to provide as much information as possible about the course and the nature of the project they undertook or plan to undertake.
Students are not obligated to take the exact courses they list on their original Intent to Enroll form. However, it is in a student's best interest to keep the T&S Steering Committee updated on course choices to ensure that all course choices will be approved prior to graduation. Students can resubmit the Intent to Enroll to change their course plans on file.
If students would like advising about their course selection, they should contact the Director of the T&S emphasis to schedule a meeting.
Application Stage Resources: Intent to Enroll, Course Petition form
Submit all forms to the CITS mailbox, North Hall 2201.
Coursework should develop a working familiarity with contrasting approaches to the study of technology and society. The curriculum requirement itself has two components: participation in a Technology and Society Colloquium (a.k.a. the “gateway seminar”) and completion of a set of graduate courses chosen from a stratified menu.
Gateway Technology and Society Colloquium Requirement
An important part of the Emphasis experience is interacting directly with the cohort of other students in the program and developing an intellectual community beyond the student's own discipline. Toward this goal, students must complete a 1-unit gateway course entitled "Technology and Society Colloquium." This course will meet one to two hours per week, and will be taught by a member of the Technology & Society Emphasis faculty. This “gateway course” is usually taught twice a year.
The course focuses on interaction across disciplines and on exploring differences in conceptualization and approaches to knowledge-production across disciplines on topics that change each offering, based on the faculty member convening the seminar.
Graduate Course Requirement
The course requirement has two goals: exposure to differing methodological and epistemological approaches to the study of technology and society, and exposure to a range of substantive subject areas, independent of method and epistemology.
The main methodological and epistemological divide we aim to bridge is that between the humanities and social sciences. While clear boundaries cannot in all cases be identified, often the social sciences tend toward more positivistic approaches to theorizing and the organization of evidence, while the humanities tend away from such approaches. It is important that students seeking a multi-disciplinary understanding of technology and society be exposed to inquiry from both ends of this and other spectra that often separate the social sciences and humanities. Therefore, the first consideration in our curriculum requirement is that the menu of courses be constructed in such a way as to encourage study of both the humanities and the social sciences. The main substantive concerns for the emphasis involve breadth with respect to several topics.
Much of the disparate literature on technology and society falls into one or more of two large categories: 1) study of cultures, meanings, and other human constructs; 2) study of human behavior, organizations, and social structures. The first of these topics tends to be emphasized by scholars working in humanistic traditions, though this is not exclusively the case, while the second tends to appear chiefly but not exclusively in the social sciences. The second consideration in the curriculum is that the students’ course work be organized around substantive breadth in these areas.
Therefore the curriculum is organized to accomplish both these methodological-epistemological goals and substantive goals.
The course requirement is completion of four 4-unit courses with a grade of B or better, with two courses in each of the following two areas (when instructors are listed parenthetically with a course, the course only counts toward the emphasis when that instructor is the instructor of record); no more than one course taken in the student's home department can be used toward fulfilling the Emphasis course requirement:
Currently Approved List of Emphasis Courses (1/2009)*
| Area 1: Culture and History | Area 2: Society and Behavior |
|---|---|
| ENG 236 (Course title varies, approved for technology titles with Liu, Raley, and Warner)
FM 236 Historicizing New Media HIST 201HS (Course title varies, approved for technology titles with McCray and Osborne) |
ANTH 255 Anthropology of Mass Media and Popular Culture (M. Yang)
COMM 213 Mass Communication and the Individual (Metzger) SOC 224 Collective Behavior and Social Movements (Earl) POLS 596 Information Technology and Politics (Bimber, when lead as a seminar; not when organized as directed readings) |
* Note: This page, in its current form, is the only valid listing of pre-approved courses that count toward the Emphasis.
*New courses may be added to the list by consent of the Technology and Society Faculty. Students may also submit a Course Petition for the acceptance of another graduate course in substitution for one on the approved list. Petitions must be reviewed and approved by the Steering Committee of the Technology and Society Faculty.
During the ABD phase, a student must form his or her dissertation committee, containing at least one T&S faculty member from a department other than the student’s own (see http://cits.ucsb.edu/education/ for a list of T&S faculty).
The student must also defend his or her dissertation topic. The Technology & Society Emphasis requires a topic relating to at least one of the two T&S Emphasis areas.
Upon defending the dissertation proposal, a student should submit a Completion Form, notifying the T&S committee of completion of the Emphasis requirements. Once the committee has reviewed and approved the coursework, committee, and dissertation topic, they can certify to Graduate Division that the student has completed the requirements for the Ph.D. Emphasis.
At this time, the student should also submit the Graduate Division petition to add the emphasis to his or her transcript if s/he has not already done so. This petition will require signatures of the student’s departmental Graduate Advisor, the faculty director of the Technology & Society Emphasis, and Graduate Division, and there will be a nominal fee upon submission.
ABD Stage Resources: Completion Form, Course Petition Form, Graduate Division Petition
Submit Completion & Course Petition forms to the CITS mailbox, North Hall 2201.
Submit Graduate Division Petition to CITS for T&S Director signature, then to Graduate Division
If the student has not done so already, s/he should submit a Completion Form and Graduate Division Petition (see ABD Phase) and answer any correspondence from the T&S Director or Steering Committee. If all forms are submitted and approved, then the student must simply file the dissertation and graduate!
