The course presents 15 topics that are worked on a weekly basis:

1_Liquids: Introduction. The "liquid" complexity of our present (Z. Bauman) obliges us to move away from essentialisms and analyze the boundaries of knowledge in a flexible way (Th. Gieryn). We live in times of fragmentation, fragility, uncertainty, and instability, and it is this liquid dimension of the present that needs to be critically and constructively addressed in the weekly sessions of this course.

2_Presentisms: It is necessary to review an excessively uncritical image of progress (W. Benjamin) and propose new ways of interpreting the past for its usefulness in our present (N. Oreskes). "New presentism" suggests using case studies from historical research to strengthen our capacity for analysis and political positioning in the present.

3_Sociologies: Far from an essentialist view of science and knowledge, it is necessary to reflect on the different "science-society" relationships that have developed throughout the 20th century (Merton, Kuhn, Latour). From initial approaches to the study of science and knowledge as a collective phenomenon with its own autonomy, we move towards a progressive blurring of the boundaries between science and society.

4_Cultures: Science, particularly the natural sciences, has difficulty integrating into culture in a broad sense. A new approach to science and its practice is needed. It should be analysed as another cultural phenomenon, as a mediator between the natural and social order (Geertz, Latour). "Ethnographies" delve us into local and contingent knowledge, give voice to multiple actors, and question the supposed "universality" of knowledge.

5_Controversies: We are mainly interested in people’s disagreement, in conflict (S. Schaffer). Controversies are disputes about boundaries (Th. Gieryn). Scientific knowledge needs to be approached symmetrically, where all discourses about nature, society, and the individual have a relevant epistemological value. Furthermore, the battle for authority and recognition is often settled in the public sphere (J. Habermas).

6_Communications: There is no clear boundary between science and its communication to society (B. Lewenstein). Knowledge is created through continuous interactions between presumed experts and laypeople who struggle for power and social recognition (S. Hilgartner, L. Fleck). The publics of science are a fluid category (Nieto-Galan). It is in this context that we can develop a critical discourse about the deeply political role of popularisation and education.

7_Transits: Knowledge in transit (J. Secord) occurs within a single society but also between different social groups, cultures, etc., which need to be critically analysed from a postcolonial perspective (S. Harding) and give voice to "subaltern" actors who until recently were invisibilized (Gramsci). The crisis of exceptionalism of Western science has led us to a set of plural “modernities”.

8_Experts: What is the role of experts in liberal democracies? Is it possible to reconcile science and democracy (H. Collins)? What difference can be established between the government of experts and the influence of "intellectuals" (E. Said)? To answer these questions, it is necessary to critically analyse the relationships between knowledge and power (Adorno, Foucault), between science and politics.

9_Technologies: Just as we dismiss "essentialist" views of science and the disciplines that compose it (Gieryn), we must also question an overly simplistic view that considers technology as a neutral and autonomous force, isolated from human intervention (A. Feenberg). The boundary between science and technology, as well as between inventors and users, is not clear either. Technology is socially constructed (W. Bijker) based on class, profession, gender (J. Wajcman), etc.

10_Extremisms: Critiques of the consequences of enlightened rationality and progress (Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin) become particularly explicit in the face of 20th-century totalitarianism (H. Arendt) and the participation of scientists/experts in the construction of certain political regimes like Nazi Germany (R. Proctor).

11_Environmentalisms: In recent decades, "green" criticisms of scientific and technological progress have gained strength from various perspectives: environmental history (D. Worster), political ecology (Martínez Alier), the role of toxins as sociotechnical agents (Bertomeu), ecofeminism (C. Merchant), and slow violence (R. Nixon).

12_Pandemics: Public health is an excellent tool for analyzing the "science-technology-society" relationships, and pandemics, as crises of public health systems, represent an excellent example for study (Foucault, Bensaude-Vincent). They challenge our search for the mechanisms of authority in medicine and the definition of certain boundaries of expertise (Th. Gieryn, R. Porter).

13_Genders: The gender revolution has probably been one of the most significant transformations of recent decades. From the initial tradition of "women in science" (M. Rossiter), we have moved on to more ambitious interpretations of gender as a socially constructed relationship through technofeminism (J. Wajcman), ecofeminism (C. Merchant), or the construction of new knowledge from a gender perspective (E. Fox Keller, S. Harding, L. Schiebinger).

14_Activists: In the same way that the "publics of science" (students, visitors, patients, amateurs, readers, etc.) acquire relevant epistemological status in specific contexts, activists in a broad sense must also be considered from this perspective (M. Armiero). Ecologists, feminists, patient groups, etc., can provide a "strong objectivity" (S. Harding) so that the viewpoints of the marginalized and oppressed can help us co-construct more "objective" narratives of our world.

15_Synthesis: What are, or could be, the utopias of our present? How can we overcome a certain "postmodern pessimism" (L. Marx) or the pessimistic vision of Retrotopia (Z. Bauman) of nostalgia and seeking refuge in an idealized, supposedly better past? Some of the proposals presented in previous sessions will help us find tools to overcome the society of risk and uncertainty (U. Beck) of our present.