正如你们所知，这个研讨会的主题是“从STS观点看当今事件”。我曾告诉你们，今年春季预期将有很多重大事件发生。但是， 我从未想像过第一件事竟是“哥伦比亚”号太空梭失事的灾难性损失。因此，带着沉重的心情，我将第一次课堂讨论和家庭作业的要点概述如下：
As you know, the theme of the seminar is "Current Events from an STS Perspective." I told you to expect a lot of significant events this spring, but I never would have imagined that first one would be the catastrophic loss of the space shuttle Columbia. So it is with a heavy heart that I outline our first discussions and assignments for the class:

阅读今天《纽约时报》中的相关新闻故事，继续阅读从现在到星期三的相关报导。
Read relevant stories in The New York Times today, and keep reading between now and Wednesday.

同时思考：灾难发生的背景和环境（灾难发生在此历史时刻，具有何等意义）。
Be thinking about: the context of this disaster (its significance coming as it does at this time in history).

同时思考：这一事件与其他事件的联系，或者这一事件与社会技术系统的联系（这些相互关联可能表明我们对已发生事情的看法）
Be thinking about: the connections between this event and other events or sociotechnical systems (connections that might illuminate our understanding of what has happened).

在下周的课中，我希望你们每个人用五分钟（只可少不可多），就“哥伦比亚”号失事的背景环境，或者灾难的相关联系，阐述一个观点。对于此事，我们都有很多感想和感觉。但是，你必须集中说明一个对你具有特殊意义的观点。
In class this coming week I would like each of you to take five minutes (no more, less is OK) to express one idea about the context or connections of the loss of the Columbia. We all have many thoughts and feelings about this; you need to focus on one point that seems especially significant to you.

在课程第一周，我要求课堂上的每一位成员，就“哥伦比亚”号失事的背景环境或相关联系，做一些事实发掘工作。建议如下：
I will ask each member of the seminar to do some fact-finding during the first week of class on some context or connection of the loss of the Columbia. Here are some suggestions:

---NASA作为一个社会技术系统：如何管理？其管理中的主要问题是什么？
--NASA as a sociotechnical system: how is it managed? what are the main issues in its management?
--在太空中从事科学研究：代价和益处是什么？
--doing science research in space: what are the costs and the benefits?
--媒体报导（电视，网络，等等）：它如何塑造我们对这一事件的感受？（注意MIT在报导中所起作用）
--media coverage (TV, on-line, etc.): how did it shape our experience of the event? (note MIT's role in this coverage)
--悲剧发生方式中能为人们所观察到的方方面面（太空梭碎片如雨点般从天而降）
--the symbolic dimensions of the way the tragedy occurred (debris raining from the sky)
--伊卡余斯和代达余斯神话：古代神话有助于我们理解目前的事件吗？
--the myth of Icarus/Daedalus: do ancient myths help us understand current events?
--太空人从Tom Wolfe“正确材质”所描述的“牛仔精神特质”，到今天市郊精神特质的演化 - 动机改变了吗？训练呢？这些究竟是什么人？
--the evolution of astronauts from the "cowboy ethos" of Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" to the suburban ethos of today - have motivations changed? training? who are these people?
-- Ron McNair是谁, 他为什么重要？
--who was Ron McNair and why does he matter?
--与“挑战者”号失事的相似性：社会背景环境有哪些变化？这次新闻媒体报导有哪些不同？二次事故的意义有何不同？（二次事故的意义有何相似之点?）
--analogies with the Challenger disaster: what has changed in the context, how is media coverage different this time, how is the meaning of these two events different (and how is it similar)?
--我们如何寻找事故的“原因”？（却年秋天读过Galison文章的同学应该再读，这篇文章还在STS.069的网址中。）
--how do we find "the cause" of this accident? (those of you who read Galison's article last fall should reread it: it's still on the website for STS.069)
--太空梭计划引发了哪些有趣的技术系统问题? 作为太空梭计划设计中密不可分的一部分, 我们如何看待地缘政治和美国政策？
--what are the interesting technical systems questions raised by the space shuttle program? how do we see geopolitics and American policy built into the design of that program?

虽然还有更多的联系和社会背景需要思考，但你们可以从上面的问题开始。第二次课，在你们事实发掘的基础上，做一个简短的口头和书面报告。课堂节奏：通过评述当前事件以选出最具意义的事件，然后从“科学，技术和社会”跨学科的观点出发，反思这些事件。我希望需要思考的后续事件不是这般沉痛。
There are many more connections and contexts to think about but this will give you a start. There will be a brief oral and written report due in the second class based on your fact-finding. This will be the rhythm of the class: reviewing current events to choose the most significant ones, and then reflecting upon them from a "science, technology, and society" interdisciplinary perspective. I hope subsequent events are not so painful to contemplate.

2003年2月6日，星期四(Rosalind Williams致Michael Feld)
Thursday, February 6, 2003 (Rosalind Williams to Michael Feld)

今天早晨我留了一个口信，请您的秘书转达。请问您本周星期二晚是否可能出席我的课，在您方便的时候与我联系。这是一个小型的阅读研讨会，名为“从STS观点看当今事件”。在第一次课我们讨论了哥伦比亚号灾难性事件，我问学生谁知道Ronald McNair,没有人听说过他。这让我感到一丝烦恼（当然，当“挑战者”号失事时，他们还是婴儿。）在本课程开始之际，我衷心希望我能在MIT找到一位与Ron有亲身交往的人士，来到课堂并介绍他的一些情况。
I left a message with your secretary this morning asking you to contact me at your convenience about the possibility of your coming to my class this coming Tuesday evening. This is a small reading seminar on "Current Events from an STS Perspective." In the first class we talked about the Columbia disaster, and I asked if they knew who Ronald McNair was. No one had heard of him. This bothers me (though of course they were babes when the Challenger was lost). I was hoping I could find someone at MIT who knew Ron personally to come and say a few words about him at the start of the class.

2003年2月21日，星期五（Rosalind Williams）
Friday, February 21, 2003 (Rosalind Williams)

2月25日你们交二篇作业：
Feb. 25. You will have two assignments due:

1．就上周晚餐座谈做一篇二页的评论：讨论中特别吸引你的一个观点。
1. two-page comment on your dinnertime conversation this past week: one point that especially intrigued you in your discussion

如果你没有参加晚餐座谈，那么针对上周你与其他人有关当今事件的某次谈话，写一篇二页的评论（谈话可以在课内或课外，朋友之间，与老师或其他教职员工，在家中与亲人，等等）：谈论了什么？你为什么觉得重要？
If you didn't attend the dinner, then just write two pages on some conversation you have had in the past week about current events (in class, out of class, with friends, with faculty, with staff, with the folks back home, whatever): what was said and why it seems important to you.

2．每周例行作业：针对上周在报上你读到的某条新闻，做一篇二页的评论（将新闻剪报或新闻列印稿带来）
2. the usual weekly assignment: two-page comment on some news item you read in the newspaper this past week (bring along a clipping or hard copy of that item)

这次我要求每位同学在课堂上朗读你们的第二篇作业（一般性地评论新闻），而不是进行即兴式的演讲。实际上，这种做法对每位同学都设置了时间限制。而且，对于提高你们的写作水平也大有益处。（当你大声朗读你的作品时，令人惊异的是你会发现自己写作中的优缺点。）
This time I will have each student read in class the second assignment (the general comment on the news) rather than speaking more or less off the cuff. This will set a de facto time limit on each student and it is also useful for improving your writing (it is amazing how you find things in your own writing, for better or for worse, when you read your work out loud).

因为我们要将课堂事件留给其他议题和全体讨论，所以也许不可能让每位同学每周都朗读。但是我们可以试试--
It may not be possible to have each student read each week, because we want to reserve class time for other topics and for general discussion. But let's try--

2003年3月12日，星期三（Rosalind Williams）
Wednesday, March 12, 2003 (Rosalind Williams)

昨晚我忘了告诉你们：在下周的课（3月18日）我们的客座老师是Tom Hughes 。本周末他到本市参加革新与创造会议（由Lemelson-MIT专案赞助）。他将停留到星期一晚，出席为他举行的庆祝宴会：Tom刚被选入国家工程研究院（NAE）， 是第一位被提名选入NAE的技术史学家，所以我们庆祝这一令人高兴的事情。（在下期“技术论坛”中将有此事的报导）。我邀请他多停留一晚，这样我们可以荣幸地再次请他做客座老师，出现在课堂上。（Jina, 在去年秋季的“危机世界中的科学技术”课程中， Tom是少数几位客人之一）。这不会改变你们的作业（五篇长约二页的评述，以及你们计划阅读并写评论的书名），也不会改变课堂节奏。我只想提醒你们，这样你们在星期二就不会感到惊讶。
I forgot to tell you last night that at next week's class (March 18) Tom Hughes will be our guest. He is in town this weekend for a conference on the history of innovation and invention (sponsored by the Lemelson-MIT Program). He will be staying on for a dinner in his honor on Monday night: Tom has just been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the first historian of technology to be named to the NAE, so we are celebrating this happy event. (There will be a story about it in the next issue of Tech Talk.) I asked him to stay over one more night so we could have him back as a guest in class. (Jina, Tom was one of quite a few visitors in the "Technology in a Dangerous World" class this past fall.) This doesn't change your assignments (five two-pagers, plus the title of a book you intend to read and report on) nor will it change the rhythm of the class. I just wanted to alert you so you wouldn't be surprised on Tuesday.

2003年3月19日，星期三（Rosalind Williams）
Wednesday, March 19, 2003 (Rosalind Willaims)

昨晚我一直在反复想Matt长约二页的评论，文章的结论（可改写为）“既然我们已经捅了马蜂窝，那么现在我们除了进行战争，别无选择。”换句话说，Matt赞成基于技术决定论观点的历史必然性，即，如果你将巨大的军事机器（人员和武器）安排就绪，在某一时刻你会使用它。
I have been thinking more about Matt's two-pager last night and its conclusion (to paraphrase) that "since we have stirred up the hornet's nest we have no choice now but to go to war." In other words Matt argues for historical inevitability based on an argument of technological determinism, i.e. if you have the military "megamachine" (people and weapons) in place, at some point you will have to use it.

今天《纽约时报》上Mary McGrory的专栏文章让我一直思考Matt的观点（我想专栏文章的题目是“第一个垂直观察的人”）。她认为，一直以来，通过不断地增加在某一地区的军事驻扎数量，钱尼特别坚持地在创造“地面技术事实”（正如他们在以色列的另一环境中所说的那样），如此一来战争就不可避免。她同时认为，当真正的行动是无情地、不断地增加军事力量时，我们所看到的一切外交努力只不过是一场毫不相关的穿插表演。换言之，我们关注于错误的新闻—外交新闻报导上，而真正重要的新闻故事一直以来都是军事事件时，。因此，Matt的结论（“我们别无选择”）基于一种有意识的人类决定：通过技术方式，“制造出”历史必然性的判断。
What kept me thinking about Matt's argument is Mary McGrory's op-ed in today's New York Times ("First Person Perpendicular," I think it's titled). She contends that all along Cheney in particular has been intent on creating technological "facts on the ground" (as they say in Israel in another context) by building up the military presence in the region just so war would become inevitable. She also contends that all the diplomatic maneuvering we have been watching has been an irrelevant side-show when the real action has been the inexorable build-up of military forces. In other words, we have been following the wrong story--the diplomatic story--when the one that really mattered all along is the military one. Therefore Matt's conclusion ("we have no choice") is based on a conscious human decision to *create* a sense of historical inevitability, through technological means.

随着事件的不断展开，请对技术决定主义和历史必然性做更多的思考。李奥·托尔斯泰在长篇鸿制《战争与和平》的结尾，对历史作用机制提出了一个相当与众不同的诠释，同时也请你们对这个诠释进行思考。书中主要历史事件是，1812年拿破仑入侵俄国为拿破仑征服整个欧洲努力的一部分。拿破仑是典型的“历史伟人”，但是托尔斯泰认为，拿破仑被深层次的历史力量裹挟而前，拿破仑时代的每个人都是如此，而且在这些巨大的事件中人类的决定是一种虚假且有欺骗性的现象。如果你们中有人最近读过《战争与和平》，那就太好了。（我已多年未读此书，打算最近再翻阅一遍）
Please think some more about technological determinism and historical inevitability as events unfold. Please think also about a rather different interpretation of how history works: this is the one advanced by Leo Tolstoy at the end of his massive novel War and Peace. The main historical event in that novel is Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 as part of Napoleon's years of effort to conquer Europe. Napoleon is the classic "great man of history" but Tolstoy argues that he was swept along by deeper historical forces, that everyone was during the Napoleonic epoch, and that the appearance of human decision-making in these grand events is illusory and deceptive. If anyone among you has read War and Peace recently, so much the better. (I haven't read it for years but mean to take a look at it again soon.)

昨晚Tom Hughes和我想讨论这个问题，但时间不够。春假后当我和同学们再相聚时，我们可以试着讨论这个问题以及许多其他问题。同时继续记笔记—寻常事而已，只为了存储一些想法，可能会启发本课程将来的写作，更不用说吸引你们的儿孙。
Tom Hughes and I wanted to discuss this last night but we ran out of time. Let's try to discuss it when we reconvene after spring vacation--as well as much else. Keep taking notes in the meantime--nothing fancy, just enough to store some thoughts that might inspire future writing for this class, not to mention being of interest to your grandchildren.

春假愉快！记住：无论历史上发生了什么事，春天，好友，家庭纽带是一生中永恒的珍爱。
Have a great time over spring vacation, remembering that springtime and good friends and family ties are enduring values in life whatever happens in history.

2003年4月10日，星期四（Robert Crease致Rosalind Williams）
Thursday, April 10, 2003 (Robert Crease to Rosalind Williams)（征得Robert Crease的允许，同意在此公开）
(Courtesy of Robert Crease. Used with permission.)

亲爱的Rosalind：
Dear Rosalind:

课程进行得非常顺利：一篇论文关于铀废料，二篇关于战争，二篇关于SAS, 一篇关于牛奶，一篇关于TDP。似乎只有一人读过我的文章，因此我们没有讨论这篇文章。但是有关他们论文的对话却相当活跃。有些事情你可能想提出讨论，但我忘了提及：
The class went very well: one paper on depleted uranium, two on the war,
two on SARS, one on milk, and one on TDP. Only one person seemed to have
read my paper, so we didn't discuss that, but the conversation on their
papers was lively. Some things I forgot to mention which you might want to
bring up:

1．当然，SARS是一个触发很多STS问题的议题。起初他们没有提及，但我指出：SARS的研究背景与研究传染病的实验室密切相关。即使从道德上来讲，研究这类疾病也是很重要的—但是实验室相邻街区人们的恐慌也是可以理解的，他们不断地试图表明：即使出于道义的责任，不在他们的后院研究这类疾病是非常重要的。我相信这将是21世纪STS最重要的问题之一。有人（Matt或Dave）曾提到在Galveston开设一所CDC研究机构的努力被市长封杀，我提及梅岛四季不断的问题。我忘记论及1976年剑桥在重组细胞DNA研究一事上做过同样艰苦的努力，结果是议会投票决定禁止这一研究。在本学期或上学期课程中，你可能已提到过这种“发生在自家周围”的有趣情节，但是我想你可能想将这些事情联系起来。
1. SARS, of course, is a subject raising many STS issues. One set which
they didn't at first mention but which I did has to do with the
laboratories where contagious diseases are studied. It seems important,
even a moral duty, to study such diseases--but the neighbors are
understandably nervous and frequently try to say it is important, even a
moral duty, NOT to study such diseases in their back yards. This will be,
I'm convinced, one of the most important STS issues of the 21st century.
Somebody--Matt or Dave, I think--mentioned an effort to open a CDC
facility in Galveston which was blocked by the mayor, and I mentioned Plum
Island's perennial problems. But what I forgot to do was mention
Cambridge's own similar struggles, in 1976, with recombinant DNA research--
and the fact that the city council voted to ban such research. You may
have already mentioned this close-to-home episode in this class or in last
semester's, but I thought you might want to draw the connection.

2．几篇论文论及风险问题。我不确定我是否作了应有的强调：事实上风险并不单单是一个技术问题，尽管答案就在某个地方（或隐或现），但是社会问题经常从政治原因方面探索。Gregory和Miller在《公众科学》中写道：“风险报告是上天对有心者的恩赐”。你可能已经说明了这个观点。
2. Several of the papers mentioned risk issues. I'm not sure I stressed
as much as I should have the fact that risk is not simply a technical
issue, where the answer is out there someplace (hidden or not), but a
social issue that is frequently exploited for political reasons. "A risk
statement is a godsend to anyone with an agenda," write Gregory and Miller
in SCIENCE IN PUBLIC. You may have already made this point.

Gina的论文中有一幅母牛拴在吉普车上的插画。当时插画引来了大家善意的嘲笑。但我应该指出，一周后，所有人仍然记得牛和吉普车。一幅极好的插画，加入文章中真是棒极了。
3. Gina's paper included an image of a cow tethered to a Jeep. We all
laughed good-naturedly at this at the time. I should have pointed out,
though, that--a week later--we would all still remember that cow and
Jeep. It was a fine image, and a great one to include.

我羡慕你那聪明而活跃的班级。再次感谢你给了我参与的机会。祝你旅途愉快！
I envy you your intelligent and lively class. Thanks again for the
opportunity to participate. And I hope you had a good trip!

2003年4月22日，星期二（Rosalind Williams）
Tuesday, April 22, 2003 (Rosalind Williams)

我不得不取消今晚的补课，因为我感冒还未康复。我原以为到这个时候我已战胜感冒，但治愈还得一会儿。（幸运的是病情轻微，而且肯定不是SARS）
I am going to have to cancel this evening's make-up class because I have still not recovered from the flu. I thought I would be over it by now but it is taking a while to clear up (though fortunately it is a mild case and certainly not SARS!).

如果你们中有人已经写好今晚的二页论文，那很好：请以电子格式交给我，算作本课程必须交的十篇二页论文中的一篇。以后有时间，我们回过头来讨论这篇论文。下周的课按往常方式进行，我们也必须讨论期末活动和以此为基点今后如何继续进行。
If any of you have written a two-pager already for this evening, that's just fine: please turn it into me electronically and it will count as one of the ten two-pagers you need for this class. We will get around to discussing it sometime. Our class next week will follow the usual format, but we also need to discuss end-of-term activities and where-do-we-go-from here.

请注意从今天《环球时代》上摘引Jay Garmer的话：“从今往后我们要做的是在伊拉克催生一个新体制”。“从今往后”和“催生”都带林肯式的语调，但一个新体制？不是一个新政府或新社会？这是什么意思？从STS观点看，这条新闻暗示什么？（美国对什么感兴趣，推动民主，还是建立制度，或是其他什么？Garner的声明暗示技术与社会二者之间具有什么联系？）
Please note the quote from Jay Garner in today's Times and Globe: "What we need to do from this day forward is to give birth to a new system in Iraq." "From this day forward" has Lincoln-ian cadences, as does the birth metaphor, but a new system? not a new government or new society? what does this mean and what does it suggest in terms of an STS perspective on the news (is the US into promoting democracy, or systems-building, or what? what is the connection between technology and society implied by Garner's pronouncement?).

我还要求你们注意Wolfgang Schivelbusch 在今天时代周刊上的专栏文章。Wolfgang是当今最好的技术文化史学家，在军事技术相差悬殊的时代存在失败文化，他对这种文化特别感兴趣。他住在离归零地（Groud Zero）只有二个街区（并非偶然地）。这事我们还要进行讨论。
I'd also call your attention to the op-ed by Wolfgang Schivelbusch in today's Times. Wolfgang is one of the best cultural historians of technology around these days and is especially interested in the culture of defeat in an age of great disparities in military technologies. He lives a couple blocks from Ground Zero, not incidentally. We'll talk more about this too.