Module manager: Víctor Durà-Vilà
Email: v.dura-vila@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
This module is approved as a discovery module
This module will use a series of online case studies to encourage you to reflect on the nature of your relationship with technology. Case studies will include both familiar, everyday technologies, such as mobile phones, and more specialised devices, such as hearing aids, to help you consider such questions as: What role does technology play in forming the identity of individuals in everyday interactions? Do we use technology as an instrument to achieve our human aims or is it an independent force that determines conditions of our lives? What role does technology play in our experience of, and attitude towards, disability, gender or culture? Please note this is an optional module and runs subject to enrolments. If a low number of students choose this module, then the module may not run and you may be asked to choose another module.
The module is designed to encourage you to reflect on your own everyday use of and interaction with various technologies, as well as developing your understanding of the ways in which technology both responds to and influences the human condition. Moreover, the module introduces you to key philosophical and historical claims about technology.
You will be provided with online learning materials to read and watch, and case studies to explore. The blog posts are designed to facilitate your fortnightly engagement with the online materials of the module and develop your capacity to write in the tradition of the humanities, while reflecting on the role of technology in your life. Tutorials are in person and help you develop your dialectical skills and further your capacity to understand the materials through critical discussion of the online learning materials. In sum, this module provides you with the opportunity to develop a more ambitious understanding of the topics of the syllabus as well as the key historical and philosophical concepts relevant to technology.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Use a range of analytical themes to discuss the significance of technology in the modern world;
2. Critically examine your own relationship with technologies in the context of key philosophical and historical claims about the role of technology in human life;
3. Use evidence from case-studies to critically reflect on past and present technologies.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
4. Communicate ideas and understanding clearly and concisely, using appropriate academic language (Academic and Work Ready skill)
5. Use ethical or philosophical frameworks when analysing issues arising in real-world contexts (Work Ready, Enterprise and Sustainability skill)
6. Utilise appropriate material to support knowledge and analysis of topics (Academic, Work Ready, Digital and Sustainability skill)
Possible topics are:
Technology and progress
Technology, culture and nature
Technology and Identity
Technology and disability
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 5 | 3 | 15 |
| Practical | 5 | 2 | 10 |
| Seminar | 5 | 1 | 5 |
| Private study hours | 70 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 30 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 100 | ||
The students get formative feedback through the discussions in the seminars distributed over the semester fortnightly. The blog posts also serve a formative function. They provide feedback on understanding of material and the capacity to write in the tradition of the humanities in preparation for the summative essay.
There is a deadline for each blog post. They get only short extensions. These are "designed to facilitate your fortnightly engagement with the online materials". Students study a topic and then move on. So any short term illness can be accommodated but general lack of engagement is not accommodated through extensions.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Blog posts | 50 |
| Coursework | Essay | 50 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
The resit for the blog component will be an essay.
Check the module area in Minerva for your reading list
Last updated: 03/03/2025
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team