Winter 2002
Times' Harvest
1/3/02: Sorry - the Times' Harvest course has been cancelled for Winter 2002. The other two courses, Web.Edu and Creativity, will be held as advertised. Or, see you in a later semester!
[Meetings for this course are coordinated with:
However, these courses do not have to be taken together.]
Times' Harvest: AGS 3360 Section 990, Call Number 98319, 4 credits (Upper Division undergraduate, Science and Technology Advanced Seminar). Some course meetings are required: several at the beginning of the semester, and one near the end.
The Time’s Harvest workshop course (AGS 3360) examines ideas about the historical stages of human society and about its future. The interplay between science, technology and society is central to this analysis. People who analyze the possibilities for the future of human society are called futurists. Some futurists see a society in decline and predict a disastrous future, while others see a fundamentally new society developing into a desirable future. Students in this course will develop their own views and apply the analysis from the course to their personal lives, and to recent developments in the United States and elsewhere. The primary assignments will be reading and writing. The writing assignments will involve close and accurate reading, as well as putting together ideas from different parts of a given book, and from different books as well. Writing assignments will also require applying the ideas from the readings to your own life, and supplying concrete detail consistent with the readings.
AGS 3360 is primarily online, although there are required course meetings; specific dates will be announced on the course web site (see below). We will use email for assignments, and the World Wide Web for course materials and computer conferencing.
Textbooks:
Toffler, Alvin, The Third Wave (paperback) ISBN 0-553-24698-4.
Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Farrar Straus Giroux (order paperback if available) ISBN (hardbound) 0-374-19203-0
Zuboff, Shoshana, In the Age of the Smart Machine. Basic Books, 1988 (paperback) ISBN (hardbound 0-465-03212-5) .
Course meetings (all are Thursday evenings from 7 to 9 PM in 113 Rackham Building on the northeast corner of Woodward and Warren:
For further information, or for questions or comments,
- Contact the Instructor as follows: David R. Bowen, email to d.r.bowen@wayne.edu or by telephone (WSU): (313) 577-1498, or (evenings) (248) 549-8518
- Or - see the full description of the Winter 2001 version at http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen/thw01.
- The course web site for Winter 2002 will have additional information about class meetings after November 15; syllabi, assignments and textbook requirements will be available after December 15, all at http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen/thw02.