Make up your Mind: Cultures of Neuroscience

Will brain imaging become the ultimate lie detector? Can a brain scan tell you if you are hungry, depressed, or a criminal? Do “mirror neurons” explain empathy? Neuroscientific claims pervade contemporary culture, shaping our understanding of ourselves and influencing many areas of social life, including law, education, clinical practice, and social policy. This course will examine scholarship on the scope and limits of neurobiological explanations, and how neuroscience both influences and is influenced by culture, by focusing on social and historical studies of how neuroscientific knowledge is made and circulated. In keeping with the goals of MCWP 50, students will examine arguments about this topic in an effort to understand their structures while researching and writing a research-based argument about an issue relevant to the course topic.