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For the most up-to-date fall 2024 course information, please .  

For the most up-to-date spring 2025 course information, please .

For full course descriptions, see the . 

• ENES 1010. Humanity in a Tech Age (see topic descriptions below)
• ENES 1843. Special Topics
• ENES 1850. Engineering in History: The Social Impact of Technology
• ENES 2020. The Meaning of Information Technology
• ENES 2100. History of Science and Technology to Newton
• ENES 2120. History of Modern Science from Newton to Einstein
• ENES 2130. History of Modern Technology from 1750 to the Atomic Bomb
• ENES 2210. Modern Science and Technological Society
• ENES 2360. Gaining A Global State of Mind for Effective Engineering Practice
• ENES 2843. Special Topics (see current topic descriptions below)
• ENES 3100. Ethical Awareness for Engineers
• ENES 3430. Ethics of Genetic Engineering
• ENES 3700. Global Seminar - Culture Wars in Rome
• ENES 3720. Global Seminar - Voices of Vienna
• ENES 3750. Global Seminar - Xi'an, China: Self-Awareness and Images of the Other
• ENES 3840. Independent Study
• ENES 3843. Special Topics (see current topic descriptions below)
• ENES 4830. Special Topics (see current topic description below)

ENES 1010 Topic Descriptions:

• Technology and the Human Quest.  70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens had no more impact on the environment than did jellyfish. By 1945 we became the most dominant species on earth, capable of destroying ourselves and all other life on the planet. In little more than the first half of the 20th century, we progressed from horse and buggy to landing on the moon. In the years that followed, we developed computing and information technologies whose exponential growth led to even faster change. By the end of the 21st century, according to the theory of transhumanism, a segment of humanity will bioengineer itself into a fundamentally different species. Now more than ever, it is imperative to ask: What does it mean to be human in an increasingly technological age? Designed specifically for engineers, this course considers this question from multiple angles, as it juxtaposes ancient and modern thinking at the intersection of engineering, ethics, and society.
• Living Well as Engineers.  Over the past century, remarkable innovations in the fields of Engineering, Applied Mathematics, and Computer Science have led to the creation of nuclear weapons, social media, and artificial intelligence. However, these disciplines, by their own definitions, do not address the ethical considerations of their use. This course, designed for engineering and applied science students, uses great works of literature, philosophy, music, and fine art to introduce undergraduates to fundamental questions about living well. These explorations take place through seminar discussions and regular practice in rhetorical writing.
• Designing the Renaissance.  This course is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the intellectual dynamics of the Northern European and Italian Renaissance, a time when intellectuals valued the power of reason, when mathematical perspective was invented, artistic techniques became more sophisticated, and immense cathedrals were dominating the skylines of cities.  Learn about Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and other great artists, architects, and engineers.  Study the artworks of Hieronymus Bosch, Botticelli, Caravaggio, and Gentileschi.  Dive into the depth of the human soul by reading Dante and Machiavelli.
• For All Mankind.  This course considers issues of humanity and technology as they relate to human space flight, space exploration, and uses of space. Drawing on historical case-studies and current debates, students will examine the motives and values that compel technology designers and creators to reach beyond planet Earth. We will explore ethical issues that have surrounded space travel historically as well as those that are most pressing in our own moment when plans are afoot to return humans to the Moon and undertake missions to Mars.
• Antarctic Culture and Science.  This course will introduce students to 250 years of historical, literary, and scientific exploration of the Antarctic region. Through  historical and fictional readings from James Cook, Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Ursula K. Le Guin, and others, we will examine themes of nation-building, cultural myth-making, leadership models, and the opportunities and limitations of post-Enlightenment scientific empiricism. The final portion of the course will focus on current scientific questions and engineering challenges in the Antarctic.
• Final Frontiers.  This course explores understanding of the frontier in film, thought, and culture.  Topics include westward expansion, the western genre, the space race, and digital frontiers.
• Disaster Culture.  In this class we will interrogate the role of risk and disaster in society. Risk assessment is an often unnoticed part of our daily lives; however, our collective imaginings of disaster are often apocalyptic in scale. Why is this? To answer this question we will examine different kinds of risks including environmental, economic, and public health, and we will assess how individuals and communities assess risks and anticipate disasters through policy, infrastructures, and in popular culture. 
• Enlightened Engineers.  In this course we examine principles of enlightenment from various historical, personal, sociological, psychological and cultural perspectives. We consider the tensions between abiding by rules and standing up for principles as well as the exclusion of many within ostensibly virtuous societal frameworks through works of literature, philosophy, art and music. We study aesthetic concepts from different cultures and their ethical implications. Questioning aspects of the legacies students inherit and the paths they are expected to follow both personally and in their careers can guide engineers toward actively participating in their development as human beings as well as in the creation of a more inclusive, equitable, and beautiful world.
• Origins of Modern Science.  Science is a defining aspect of the modern world, offering both unprecedented power over the natural world and persuasive frameworks for understanding it. In this seminar, we investigate the origins of modern scientific practices and ways of thinking by examining canonical elites such as Newton and Darwin, everyday people such as artisans and homemakers, and marginalized practitioners such as enslaved West African healers. Through the lens of both primary historical sources and modern scholarship, we ask questions such as who produces science, what makes science distinct from other ways of knowing, what is the relationship between science and technology, and how does science both emerge from and influence its social and cultural contexts.
• For International Students.  Sections 800 and 801 are designed for students who are English Language Learners.  To be eligible for these sections, you must be a non-native speaker of English who wants to devote extra attention to your English skills.  Reading assignments will be discussed in each class meeting, and writing assignments are due every week.  Students are required to meet with the instructor outside of class every week and to attend occasional workshops.  If you are eligible for this course and wish to enroll, please email herbst@colorado.edu for special permission.

HUEN 3843 Topic Descriptions:

• Engineering in History.  How should we understand the development of modern technology? How have new technologies shaped our society, culture, and politics, and how have they been shaped? This class is designed to help engineers use historical thinking and methods to better understand the history of technology and their own engineering practices. We'll begin the course with an overview of major developments in the modern history of technology and continue by using topical case studies to ask questions such as whether the new technologies of the twentieth century really made homemakers' lives easier, or how the needs and experiences of students, teachers, and end-users shaped the development of computing in the 20^th century. This is an inquiry- and project-based course, so rather than listening to lectures, we'll spend most of our time in class working together in groups using historical sources and scholarship to investigate big questions in the history of technology. We'll also have the opportunity to reflect critically on how historical thinking can inform our own engineering practice and on how best to narrate the history of technology to engineers.

  Students in the ENES 3843 Special Topics section of the course will attend the same classes and investigate the same questions as the students in ENES 1850, but you'll also have the opportunity to choose and research a topic in the history of modern technology that is interesting and relevant to you and to undertake a research-creation project that uses your creative or engineering (or both!) practice to express your thinking about what you've learned.

• Future Ethics in Technology: Global Science Fiction and Emerging Technologies.  This seminar examines the moral and societal implications of current and emerging technologies such as AI, immersive VR, genetic engineering and geoengineering, and offers undergraduate students an enriching perspective on the future that you are engineering. We will draw from both philosophical/ethical texts and speculative science fiction texts and films; many of these materials are penned by professionals from the fields of science and engineering and offer a grounded, practical viewpoint on technology. Spanning diverse regions including North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, these narratives present a global perspective on the varied ethical stances and solutions conceived by minds across geographical and cultural boundaries. Future Ethics in Technology is a journey into the future, a roadmap for ethical navigation in a technology-driven world, and a primer on global scifi narratives about emerging technologies.
• AI.Human.Cyborg: Co-Intelligence in the Age of AI.  With particular attention to the future of work, this course considers the shifting boundaries between the domains of personhood and of machinehood, and the many levels of collaboration, co-intelligence, centaur-ism and cyborg-ism that blur our traditional categories and distinctions.  Among the developments that we will interrogate: a reality increasingly determined by AI algorithms, a reality enriched by AI assistants and companions, a reality in which our co-workers are as likely to be software or hardware and they are to be human,  in which AI researchers are making profound discoveries, in which AI artists are creating aesthetic artifacts, and in which major IT companies and nations are competing to be first in achieving Artificial General Intelligence.