All STS students in the MA program and in the PhD streams must register for STS 501, 502, and 597/598.
The following courses will all carry STS credit in the 2024/25 academic year. This list is not exhaustive—other course may count for STS credits with the approval of your supervisor and the STS program director. Students may register in these courses via the UBC Course Schedule.
STS Core Courses
STS 501/ENGL533B (Ian Hill)
STS 502/HIST (Bob Brain)
STS597 MA Colloquium (Alison Wylie)
STS598 PhD Colloquium (Alison Wylie)
STS599 MA Thesis
STS Related Courses Taught by STS Affiliated Faculty
Graduate Courses
PHIL560 Epistemologies of Resistance: Indigenous and Engaged Research Practice (Alison Wylie)
This directed reading seminar focuses on recent philosophical literature on epistemic oppression and epistemic resistance alongside Indigenous scholarship on Indigenous identity, politics of recognition, and research practice. Texts will include selections from Tallbear, Native American DNA (2013); Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks (2014); Liboiron, Pollution is Colonialism (2021); Medina, Epistemic Resistance (2012); Tuana, Racial Climates and Ecological Indifference (2022); and Ludwig & El-Hani, Transformative Transdisciplinarity. An Introduction to Community-Based Philosophy (forthcoming, 2025).
Logistics and requirements: the seminar will meet on a weekly basis through Term 1, with periodic writing workshops and a roundtable discussion in Term 2. Seminar participants are required to circulate weekly reading responses (20%) and give at least one presentation (10%) in the term 1 seminar meetings, and actively participate in the term 2 writing workshops (10%). The major requirement is a final essay (60%).
PHIL560 (Chris Stephens)
PHIL514 (Margaret Schabas)
ENGL 535A 001 Nineteenth-Century Literature and the Senses (Suzy Anger)
Undergraduate Courses
PHIL362/ECON318 (Margaret Schabas)
PHIL363/ECON319 (Margaret Schabas)
PHIL364/HIT394 2:00-500PM Thursdays (John Beatty)
In this course, we will investigate the development of evolutionary thought, paying special attention to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. To broaden our perspective, we will consider not only the scientific but also the social, political, economic, religious, and philosophical sources of Darwin’s thought. We will also consider his influence in all these areas. The Darwinian revolution was an historical development of wide-ranging significance.
ARCL 410 / PHIL 419: Evidential Reasoning & Collaborative Practice in Archaeology
Winter 2025 | Term 2 | T/Th 3:30-5:00, BUCH B302
Professor Alison Wylie | Email: alison.wylie@ubc.ca
How do we know what (we think) we know about the past? What counts as evidence of past events, conditions and processes, and as best practices for working with this evidence? In this seminar we will address these questions as they arise in archaeology, with a focus on two sets of philosophical issues raised by archaeological practice: the strengths and limitations of reliance on “trace evidence”; and the epistemic implications of the collaborative and Indigenous-led research programs that have taken shape in archaeology in recent decades. Archaeological examples and discussions of these issues will be juxtaposed with what philosophers and science studies scholars have had to say about evidential reasoning in the historical sciences and collaborative, transdisciplinary research practice.
Format: This is a reading-intensive seminar with emphasis on in-class discussion.
Requirements: Regular reading posts, in-class presentations, and a research term paper.
Prerequisites: None, but some background in an historical science and/or philosophy of science/science studies is recommended.
PHIL469 (Alan Richardson)
SLAV_V 347A “Science Fiction in Eastern Europe (Katherine Bowers)
Special topic: “Russian and Soviet Science Fiction”
For centuries, science fiction has captivated people’s imaginations. In the context of Russia and the Soviet Union, 18th- and 19th-century writers described visions of utopia and fantastic voyages to the moon, but in the 20th century, which saw extreme scientific and technological advances, the devastation of modern war, the pressure of the Cold War, and the establishment of the Eastern bloc, science fiction came into its own. This course will explore this rich tradition, learning how political ideology, scientific research, and fiction writing influence each other and how we might consider science fiction as a genre in our own context.
More to come soon
