Michael Hobday, Andrea Prencipe, and Andrew Davies
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199263233
- eISBN:
- 9780191718847
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263233.003.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Strategy
This chapter introduces systems integration as the main topic book and then sets the scene for the discussion of the main themes presented in the book such as modularity, technology, the theory of ...
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This chapter introduces systems integration as the main topic book and then sets the scene for the discussion of the main themes presented in the book such as modularity, technology, the theory of the firm, and competitive advantage.Less
This chapter introduces systems integration as the main topic book and then sets the scene for the discussion of the main themes presented in the book such as modularity, technology, the theory of the firm, and competitive advantage.
Michael Lemon and Eden Medina
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027458
- eISBN:
- 9780262325509
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027458.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Lemon and Medina analyze how two different academic communities, Latin American studies and the history of technology, have approached the telling of Latin American history of technology, based on a ...
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Lemon and Medina analyze how two different academic communities, Latin American studies and the history of technology, have approached the telling of Latin American history of technology, based on a review of the English-language literature on the history of technology in Latin America in two of the top journals from the history of technology and three of the top journals on Latin America. Through an analysis of number of articles published, they identify important differences in how each community addresses the topic of technology, and the authors highlight what has been made visible and invisible in each field. They conclude by suggesting ways to broaden how scholars in these fields write technology history in the Latin American context.Less
Lemon and Medina analyze how two different academic communities, Latin American studies and the history of technology, have approached the telling of Latin American history of technology, based on a review of the English-language literature on the history of technology in Latin America in two of the top journals from the history of technology and three of the top journals on Latin America. Through an analysis of number of articles published, they identify important differences in how each community addresses the topic of technology, and the authors highlight what has been made visible and invisible in each field. They conclude by suggesting ways to broaden how scholars in these fields write technology history in the Latin American context.
Eric Schatzberg
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226583839
- eISBN:
- 9780226584027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226584027.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
By the end of the 1930s, the concept of technology seemed on the verge of becoming a keyword in academic discourse. But during and after World War I, science became even more identified with ...
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By the end of the 1930s, the concept of technology seemed on the verge of becoming a keyword in academic discourse. But during and after World War I, science became even more identified with technological modernity, displacing the concept of technology. Ironically, in an era when modern technology drew ever more heavily on science, natural scientists and humanist intellectuals doubled down on the ideology of pure science. Yet countervailing trends during the early Cold War encouraged wider use of the concept of technology. These trends included a new economic discourse on technological innovation, critiques of technology based in Continental philosophy, and the rise of the history of technology as an academic field.Less
By the end of the 1930s, the concept of technology seemed on the verge of becoming a keyword in academic discourse. But during and after World War I, science became even more identified with technological modernity, displacing the concept of technology. Ironically, in an era when modern technology drew ever more heavily on science, natural scientists and humanist intellectuals doubled down on the ideology of pure science. Yet countervailing trends during the early Cold War encouraged wider use of the concept of technology. These trends included a new economic discourse on technological innovation, critiques of technology based in Continental philosophy, and the rise of the history of technology as an academic field.
Michael Hobday, Andrea Prencipe, and Andrew Davies
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199263226
- eISBN:
- 9780191718847
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199263221.003.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic Systems
Introduces and sets the scene for the discussion of the main themes presented in the book.
Introduces and sets the scene for the discussion of the main themes presented in the book.
Eden Medina, Ivan da Costa Marques, and Christina Holmes
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027458
- eISBN:
- 9780262325509
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027458.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The introductory chapter to the edited volume Beyond Imported Magic: Essays on Science, Technology, and Society in Latin America argues that understanding international science and technology ...
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The introductory chapter to the edited volume Beyond Imported Magic: Essays on Science, Technology, and Society in Latin America argues that understanding international science and technology requires moving beyond models of diffusion (or imported magic) into concepts developed in postcolonial science studies and Latin American studies. Such concepts, the introduction suggests, allow the field to formulate and incorporate new ideas and knowledge about how Latin American peoples, countries, cultures, and environments create, adapt, and use science and technology. The chapter reviews the book’s three themes: Latin American perspectives on science, technology, and society; local and global networks of innovation; and science, technology and Latin American politics. It also presents a genealogy of STS research in Latin America.Less
The introductory chapter to the edited volume Beyond Imported Magic: Essays on Science, Technology, and Society in Latin America argues that understanding international science and technology requires moving beyond models of diffusion (or imported magic) into concepts developed in postcolonial science studies and Latin American studies. Such concepts, the introduction suggests, allow the field to formulate and incorporate new ideas and knowledge about how Latin American peoples, countries, cultures, and environments create, adapt, and use science and technology. The chapter reviews the book’s three themes: Latin American perspectives on science, technology, and society; local and global networks of innovation; and science, technology and Latin American politics. It also presents a genealogy of STS research in Latin America.
Jeremy Black
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780300167955
- eISBN:
- 9780300198546
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300167955.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
Information is power. For more than five hundred years the success or failure of nations has been determined by a country’s ability to acquire knowledge and technical skill and transform them into ...
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Information is power. For more than five hundred years the success or failure of nations has been determined by a country’s ability to acquire knowledge and technical skill and transform them into strength and prosperity. This book approaches global history from a distinctive perspective, focusing on the relationship between information and society and demonstrating how the understanding and use of information have been the primary factors in the development and character of the modern age. The book suggests that the West’s ascension was a direct result of its institutions and social practices for acquiring, employing, and retaining information and the technology that was ultimately produced. This analysis looks at cartography and the hardware of communication, armaments and sea power, mercantilism and imperialism, science and astronomy, as well as bureaucracy and the management of information, linking the history of technology with the history of global power while providing important indicators for the future of our world.Less
Information is power. For more than five hundred years the success or failure of nations has been determined by a country’s ability to acquire knowledge and technical skill and transform them into strength and prosperity. This book approaches global history from a distinctive perspective, focusing on the relationship between information and society and demonstrating how the understanding and use of information have been the primary factors in the development and character of the modern age. The book suggests that the West’s ascension was a direct result of its institutions and social practices for acquiring, employing, and retaining information and the technology that was ultimately produced. This analysis looks at cartography and the hardware of communication, armaments and sea power, mercantilism and imperialism, science and astronomy, as well as bureaucracy and the management of information, linking the history of technology with the history of global power while providing important indicators for the future of our world.
Stephen Tuffnell
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520294547
- eISBN:
- 9780520967588
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520294547.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
This chapter, “Engineering Gold Rushes,” by Stephen Tuffnell, examines the mechanics of late nineteenth-century global connectivity through the development of “mine engineering” as a global ...
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This chapter, “Engineering Gold Rushes,” by Stephen Tuffnell, examines the mechanics of late nineteenth-century global connectivity through the development of “mine engineering” as a global profession and the manifold interactions between the global and the national that contributed to that process. Internationally mobile mine engineers developed the mechanisms for transporting and maintaining the technologies of empire and extraction that converged on the goldfields. Nongovernmental mining institutes founded across the world, international congresses, and widely circulating technical journals acted as mechanisms for knowledge exchange and forums for cooperation. Underlying the emergence of specialist engineers were higher education systems that aimed at developing rival national or imperial professional identities that existed in tension with their global roles. Mine engineers were therefore key protagonists in the shifts discussed in this volume: from individual placer mining to highly capitalized corporate mining, from simple technologies to complex chemical extraction, and from free enterprise to wage labor.Less
This chapter, “Engineering Gold Rushes,” by Stephen Tuffnell, examines the mechanics of late nineteenth-century global connectivity through the development of “mine engineering” as a global profession and the manifold interactions between the global and the national that contributed to that process. Internationally mobile mine engineers developed the mechanisms for transporting and maintaining the technologies of empire and extraction that converged on the goldfields. Nongovernmental mining institutes founded across the world, international congresses, and widely circulating technical journals acted as mechanisms for knowledge exchange and forums for cooperation. Underlying the emergence of specialist engineers were higher education systems that aimed at developing rival national or imperial professional identities that existed in tension with their global roles. Mine engineers were therefore key protagonists in the shifts discussed in this volume: from individual placer mining to highly capitalized corporate mining, from simple technologies to complex chemical extraction, and from free enterprise to wage labor.
Eric Schatzberg
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226583839
- eISBN:
- 9780226584027
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226584027.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
In modern life, technology is everywhere. Yet as a concept, technology is a mess. In popular discourse, technology is little more than the latest digital innovations. Scholars do little better, ...
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In modern life, technology is everywhere. Yet as a concept, technology is a mess. In popular discourse, technology is little more than the latest digital innovations. Scholars do little better, offering up competing definitions that include everything from steelmaking to singing. In this book, Eric Schatzberg explains why technology is so difficult to define by examining its three thousand year history. This history has been shaped by persistent tensions between scholars and technical practitioners. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scholars have tended to hold technicians in low esteem, defining technical practices as mere means toward ends defined by others. Technicians, in contrast, have repeatedly pushed back against this characterization, insisting on the dignity, creativity, and cultural worth of their work. The tension between scholars and technicians continued from Aristotle through Francis Bacon and into the nineteenth century. It was only in the twentieth century that modern meanings of technology arose: technology as the industrial arts, technology as applied science, and technology as technique. Schatzberg traces these three meanings to the present day, when discourse about technology has become pervasive, but confusion among the three principal meanings of technology remains common. He shows that only through a humanistic concept of technology can we understand the complex human choices embedded in our modern world.Less
In modern life, technology is everywhere. Yet as a concept, technology is a mess. In popular discourse, technology is little more than the latest digital innovations. Scholars do little better, offering up competing definitions that include everything from steelmaking to singing. In this book, Eric Schatzberg explains why technology is so difficult to define by examining its three thousand year history. This history has been shaped by persistent tensions between scholars and technical practitioners. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scholars have tended to hold technicians in low esteem, defining technical practices as mere means toward ends defined by others. Technicians, in contrast, have repeatedly pushed back against this characterization, insisting on the dignity, creativity, and cultural worth of their work. The tension between scholars and technicians continued from Aristotle through Francis Bacon and into the nineteenth century. It was only in the twentieth century that modern meanings of technology arose: technology as the industrial arts, technology as applied science, and technology as technique. Schatzberg traces these three meanings to the present day, when discourse about technology has become pervasive, but confusion among the three principal meanings of technology remains common. He shows that only through a humanistic concept of technology can we understand the complex human choices embedded in our modern world.
Eden Medina, Ivan da Costa Marques, and Christina Holmes (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027458
- eISBN:
- 9780262325509
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027458.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The essays in this volume study the creation, adaptation, and use of science and technology in Latin America. They challenge the view that scientific ideas and technology travel unchanged from the ...
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The essays in this volume study the creation, adaptation, and use of science and technology in Latin America. They challenge the view that scientific ideas and technology travel unchanged from the global North to the global South—the view of technology as “imported magic.” They describe not only alternate pathways for innovation, invention, and discovery but also how ideas and technologies circulate in Latin American contexts and transnationally. The contributors’ explorations of these issues, and their examination of specific Latin American experiences with science and technology, offer a broader, more nuanced understanding of how science, technology, politics, and power interact in the past and present and further conversations among STS scholars in South America, North America, and Europe. The essays in this book use methods from history and the social sciences to investigate forms of local creation and use of technologies; the circulation of ideas, people, and artifacts in local and global networks; and hybrid technologies and forms of knowledge production. They address such topics as the work of female forensic geneticists in Colombia; the pioneering Argentinean use of fingerprinting technology in the late nineteenth century; athe design, use, and meaning of the XO Laptops created and distributed by the One Laptop per Child Program; and the development of nuclear energy in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile.Less
The essays in this volume study the creation, adaptation, and use of science and technology in Latin America. They challenge the view that scientific ideas and technology travel unchanged from the global North to the global South—the view of technology as “imported magic.” They describe not only alternate pathways for innovation, invention, and discovery but also how ideas and technologies circulate in Latin American contexts and transnationally. The contributors’ explorations of these issues, and their examination of specific Latin American experiences with science and technology, offer a broader, more nuanced understanding of how science, technology, politics, and power interact in the past and present and further conversations among STS scholars in South America, North America, and Europe. The essays in this book use methods from history and the social sciences to investigate forms of local creation and use of technologies; the circulation of ideas, people, and artifacts in local and global networks; and hybrid technologies and forms of knowledge production. They address such topics as the work of female forensic geneticists in Colombia; the pioneering Argentinean use of fingerprinting technology in the late nineteenth century; athe design, use, and meaning of the XO Laptops created and distributed by the One Laptop per Child Program; and the development of nuclear energy in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile.
Markus Krajewski and Charles Marcrum
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816695935
- eISBN:
- 9781452947501
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816695935.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter discusses Dr. Franz Maria Feldhaus’s national index of Source Research on the History of Technology and Industry Inc. that collects and meticulously archives every bit of fact on ...
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This chapter discusses Dr. Franz Maria Feldhaus’s national index of Source Research on the History of Technology and Industry Inc. that collects and meticulously archives every bit of fact on ordinary items such as a saw, a pencil, and a bathtub. His collection project aims to clarify the discrepancies and contradictions published in different books about the history of electrical engineering and technology. Critics praised the collection for its structured production arrangement, media-technological implementation and historiographical methodology, which followed the library-oriented principle of writing down all information on index cards in card-catalog format. The project’s method of collecting relied on the participation of different people. It asked them to send in clippings from local newspapers, from local historical journals, provided that the notes or articles somehow concern old machines and apparatuses, old engineering structures, or old technicians.Less
This chapter discusses Dr. Franz Maria Feldhaus’s national index of Source Research on the History of Technology and Industry Inc. that collects and meticulously archives every bit of fact on ordinary items such as a saw, a pencil, and a bathtub. His collection project aims to clarify the discrepancies and contradictions published in different books about the history of electrical engineering and technology. Critics praised the collection for its structured production arrangement, media-technological implementation and historiographical methodology, which followed the library-oriented principle of writing down all information on index cards in card-catalog format. The project’s method of collecting relied on the participation of different people. It asked them to send in clippings from local newspapers, from local historical journals, provided that the notes or articles somehow concern old machines and apparatuses, old engineering structures, or old technicians.
Edward Beatty
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780520284890
- eISBN:
- 9780520960558
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520284890.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
In the late nineteenth century, Mexicans quickly adopted new technologies imported from abroad to sew cloth, manufacture glass bottles, refine minerals, and provide many other goods and services ...
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In the late nineteenth century, Mexicans quickly adopted new technologies imported from abroad to sew cloth, manufacture glass bottles, refine minerals, and provide many other goods and services across the economy. New technologies underlay rapid economic growth as well as cultural change and social dislocation. This book traces general trends across the Mexican economy and offers new case studies of the canonical technologies of the first industrial revolution (railroads, steam engines, and iron) and of the late nineteenth century (sewing machines, automated glass bottle manufacturing, and cyanide process in gold and silver refining). The central paradox of this experience is the contrast between rapid technological change and a persistent dependence on know-how and hardware imported from the countries of the North Atlantic. Dependence arose in the gap between adopting new technologies and assimilating new knowledge and expertise. Adoption proved relatively easy in most (but not all) cases, and new machines and products were quickly integrated into the lives of many Mexicans. Yet assimilating the knowledge and expertise embedded within technology imports proved more difficult.Less
In the late nineteenth century, Mexicans quickly adopted new technologies imported from abroad to sew cloth, manufacture glass bottles, refine minerals, and provide many other goods and services across the economy. New technologies underlay rapid economic growth as well as cultural change and social dislocation. This book traces general trends across the Mexican economy and offers new case studies of the canonical technologies of the first industrial revolution (railroads, steam engines, and iron) and of the late nineteenth century (sewing machines, automated glass bottle manufacturing, and cyanide process in gold and silver refining). The central paradox of this experience is the contrast between rapid technological change and a persistent dependence on know-how and hardware imported from the countries of the North Atlantic. Dependence arose in the gap between adopting new technologies and assimilating new knowledge and expertise. Adoption proved relatively easy in most (but not all) cases, and new machines and products were quickly integrated into the lives of many Mexicans. Yet assimilating the knowledge and expertise embedded within technology imports proved more difficult.
Alexander MacDonald
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300219326
- eISBN:
- 9780300227888
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300219326.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Robert Goddard was the American “father of liquid-fuel rocketry” and his career constituted the world’s first spaceflight development program. This chapter provides an economic analysis of Goddard’s ...
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Robert Goddard was the American “father of liquid-fuel rocketry” and his career constituted the world’s first spaceflight development program. This chapter provides an economic analysis of Goddard’s career and explores his motivations and financial strategy for long-run space development. Goddard was not only the first to achieve flight with a liquid-fuel rocket, he was also the first to earn significant funding for spaceflight research. He raised much of his funding from private and semi-public sources—including philanthropic funds provided by James Smithson, Andrew Carnegie, Daniel Guggenheim and Harry Guggenheim. Though it was largely private funding that allowed Goddard to make the substantial progress that he did, he also believed that the resources required to develop the first orbital launch vehicles would vastly exceed what private individuals were likely to provide. As a result, Goddard shared with his contemporaries, Werner von Braun in Germany and Sergei Korolev in Russia, a belief that military funding provided the key to the development of spaceflight and enthusiastically and persistently pursued U.S. military funding throughout his life. He was so committed to transacting this Faustian bargain that he would work with the Chemical Warfare Service on gas warfare applications and would later leave the security and long-standing patronage of the Guggenheim family in pursuit of a major military rocket development contract in the Second World War. An economic analysis of Goddard’s career thus situates the motivating force of space history at the level of the individual, with the spaceflight developer willing and able to manipulate external demands, particularly in the military, in order to achieve his interplanetary objectives.Less
Robert Goddard was the American “father of liquid-fuel rocketry” and his career constituted the world’s first spaceflight development program. This chapter provides an economic analysis of Goddard’s career and explores his motivations and financial strategy for long-run space development. Goddard was not only the first to achieve flight with a liquid-fuel rocket, he was also the first to earn significant funding for spaceflight research. He raised much of his funding from private and semi-public sources—including philanthropic funds provided by James Smithson, Andrew Carnegie, Daniel Guggenheim and Harry Guggenheim. Though it was largely private funding that allowed Goddard to make the substantial progress that he did, he also believed that the resources required to develop the first orbital launch vehicles would vastly exceed what private individuals were likely to provide. As a result, Goddard shared with his contemporaries, Werner von Braun in Germany and Sergei Korolev in Russia, a belief that military funding provided the key to the development of spaceflight and enthusiastically and persistently pursued U.S. military funding throughout his life. He was so committed to transacting this Faustian bargain that he would work with the Chemical Warfare Service on gas warfare applications and would later leave the security and long-standing patronage of the Guggenheim family in pursuit of a major military rocket development contract in the Second World War. An economic analysis of Goddard’s career thus situates the motivating force of space history at the level of the individual, with the spaceflight developer willing and able to manipulate external demands, particularly in the military, in order to achieve his interplanetary objectives.
Gundula Kreuzer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520279681
- eISBN:
- 9780520966550
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520279681.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
Starting with the Metropolitan Opera’s paradoxical emphasis on both authenticity and technological innovation in its 2010–12 Ring cycle, the introduction highlights the longstanding dissociation in ...
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Starting with the Metropolitan Opera’s paradoxical emphasis on both authenticity and technological innovation in its 2010–12 Ring cycle, the introduction highlights the longstanding dissociation in European thought of the technical and the cultural, a distinction that influenced both the aesthetics and the study of nineteenth-century opera. A post-revolutionary appetite for realism and spectacle was fed by the ever more advanced stage technologies that composers deployed to realize their creative visions. But, as Richard Wagner championed in his 1849 essay “The Art-Work of the Future,” the artificiality of these supplementary machineries had to be veiled so that they might appear a natural part of the illusionist stage image. Novel “Wagnerian technologies” were designed to be perceived as media interfaces and thus to promote opera’s intended seamless multimediality. The study of their application and reception over time sheds new light on the materiality, ephemerality, and historicity of operatic staging.Less
Starting with the Metropolitan Opera’s paradoxical emphasis on both authenticity and technological innovation in its 2010–12 Ring cycle, the introduction highlights the longstanding dissociation in European thought of the technical and the cultural, a distinction that influenced both the aesthetics and the study of nineteenth-century opera. A post-revolutionary appetite for realism and spectacle was fed by the ever more advanced stage technologies that composers deployed to realize their creative visions. But, as Richard Wagner championed in his 1849 essay “The Art-Work of the Future,” the artificiality of these supplementary machineries had to be veiled so that they might appear a natural part of the illusionist stage image. Novel “Wagnerian technologies” were designed to be perceived as media interfaces and thus to promote opera’s intended seamless multimediality. The study of their application and reception over time sheds new light on the materiality, ephemerality, and historicity of operatic staging.
Helen Anne Curry
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226390086
- eISBN:
- 9780226390116
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226390116.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The introduction outlines the aims of the book and situates it within the histories of plant breeding, genetics, and biotechnology, American agriculture, and technological innovation. It explains why ...
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The introduction outlines the aims of the book and situates it within the histories of plant breeding, genetics, and biotechnology, American agriculture, and technological innovation. It explains why plant breeders were eager to find tools that would allow them to “speed up evolution” by generating heritable variation on demand and advances the argument that breeders’ pursuit of these tools cannot be understood apart from the broader history of technological innovation in the twentieth century. It further suggests that the account of genetic technologies provided in the book offers a new perspective on the history of biotechnologies. It reveals not only their entanglement with other areas of industrial production and innovation but also the role played in their development by many Americans who believed in the transformative power of genetics and clamored for technologies that would grant control over the heredity and evolution of living organisms.Less
The introduction outlines the aims of the book and situates it within the histories of plant breeding, genetics, and biotechnology, American agriculture, and technological innovation. It explains why plant breeders were eager to find tools that would allow them to “speed up evolution” by generating heritable variation on demand and advances the argument that breeders’ pursuit of these tools cannot be understood apart from the broader history of technological innovation in the twentieth century. It further suggests that the account of genetic technologies provided in the book offers a new perspective on the history of biotechnologies. It reveals not only their entanglement with other areas of industrial production and innovation but also the role played in their development by many Americans who believed in the transformative power of genetics and clamored for technologies that would grant control over the heredity and evolution of living organisms.
Robert N. McCauley
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262019750
- eISBN:
- 9780262318297
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262019750.003.0010
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
Consideration of scientific method as a cultural innovation requires examining the philosophy and sociology of science, anthropology, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology as well as the ...
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Consideration of scientific method as a cultural innovation requires examining the philosophy and sociology of science, anthropology, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology as well as the histories of science and technology. Anarchistic philosophical proposals about science set the stage for subsequent endorsements of quite liberal conceptions of science and scientific thinking that root these pursuits in basic features of human—even animal—cognition or in the intimate connection between science and technology. That every methodological prescription has its limits or that science is not uniform does not entail methodological anarchism. Like any other radial category, science includes more and less central instances and practices. Justifications for such liberality regarding science that are grounded in the acquisition of empirical knowledge by infants and other species downplay the sciences’ systematic approach to criticizing hypotheses and scientists’ mastery of a vast collection of intellectual tools, facts, and theories. Justifications that look to the close ties between science and technology neglect reasons for distinguishing them. Intimate ties are not inextricable ties. Research on scientific cognition suggests that, in some respects, human minds are not well suited to do science and that measures progressively sustaining science’s systematic program of criticism and its ever more counterintuitive representations both depend on cultural achievements and are themselves cultural achievements involving what have proven to be comparatively extraordinary social conditions. This richer, epistemologically unsurpassed form of science is both rare and fragile, having arisen no more than a few times in human history. Published in the Strungmann Forum Reports Series.Less
Consideration of scientific method as a cultural innovation requires examining the philosophy and sociology of science, anthropology, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology as well as the histories of science and technology. Anarchistic philosophical proposals about science set the stage for subsequent endorsements of quite liberal conceptions of science and scientific thinking that root these pursuits in basic features of human—even animal—cognition or in the intimate connection between science and technology. That every methodological prescription has its limits or that science is not uniform does not entail methodological anarchism. Like any other radial category, science includes more and less central instances and practices. Justifications for such liberality regarding science that are grounded in the acquisition of empirical knowledge by infants and other species downplay the sciences’ systematic approach to criticizing hypotheses and scientists’ mastery of a vast collection of intellectual tools, facts, and theories. Justifications that look to the close ties between science and technology neglect reasons for distinguishing them. Intimate ties are not inextricable ties. Research on scientific cognition suggests that, in some respects, human minds are not well suited to do science and that measures progressively sustaining science’s systematic program of criticism and its ever more counterintuitive representations both depend on cultural achievements and are themselves cultural achievements involving what have proven to be comparatively extraordinary social conditions. This richer, epistemologically unsurpassed form of science is both rare and fragile, having arisen no more than a few times in human history. Published in the Strungmann Forum Reports Series.
Karin Bijsterveld, Eefje Cleophas, Stefan Krebs, and Gijs Mom
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199925698
- eISBN:
- 9780199350155
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199925698.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Psychology of Music
This chapter sets the stage by claiming that the relative silence in our noise-controlled cars secludes us from the world, while the sound of car radio, warning signals and other audio information ...
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This chapter sets the stage by claiming that the relative silence in our noise-controlled cars secludes us from the world, while the sound of car radio, warning signals and other audio information connects us to it. Many of us thoroughly love the auditory privacy that comes with it: the ability to control the sounds that enter our auditory domain. This enables us to dwell in acoustic cocooning and find sonic relief in the car, to enjoy moments in which we can relax with help of sound and music in between home and work. Yet how did we, as a society, manage to turn the car, once a highly noisy vehicle, into a listening booth? After introducingthis question, Chapter One explains how the bookdraws on Sound Studies, Sensory Studies, Mobility Culture, and History of Technology to answer it, and how the study is structured.Less
This chapter sets the stage by claiming that the relative silence in our noise-controlled cars secludes us from the world, while the sound of car radio, warning signals and other audio information connects us to it. Many of us thoroughly love the auditory privacy that comes with it: the ability to control the sounds that enter our auditory domain. This enables us to dwell in acoustic cocooning and find sonic relief in the car, to enjoy moments in which we can relax with help of sound and music in between home and work. Yet how did we, as a society, manage to turn the car, once a highly noisy vehicle, into a listening booth? After introducingthis question, Chapter One explains how the bookdraws on Sound Studies, Sensory Studies, Mobility Culture, and History of Technology to answer it, and how the study is structured.
Sean F. Johnston
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199692118
- eISBN:
- 9780191740732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199692118.003.0009
- Subject:
- Physics, History of Physics
The Anglo-Saxon atom experts, born during wartime secrecy, have always been contentious. The viability of the early ad hoc specialists was disputed; in secure post-war environments, their growing ...
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The Anglo-Saxon atom experts, born during wartime secrecy, have always been contentious. The viability of the early ad hoc specialists was disputed; in secure post-war environments, their growing expertise was hidden between the lines of promotional press releases and the archived reports of government and industry. And—less secure and vocal than their cousins, the atomic scientists—they were represented second-hand by their employers and via their contentious products. Constructing a stable identity proved to be a perennial battle. This chapter compares the experiences of nuclear engineers in the USA, UK, and Canada over their first seven decades, focusing on how identities were shaped in distinct political, occupational, and disciplinary environments. It links this work to sociology of the professions, to history of technology, and to cultural history.Less
The Anglo-Saxon atom experts, born during wartime secrecy, have always been contentious. The viability of the early ad hoc specialists was disputed; in secure post-war environments, their growing expertise was hidden between the lines of promotional press releases and the archived reports of government and industry. And—less secure and vocal than their cousins, the atomic scientists—they were represented second-hand by their employers and via their contentious products. Constructing a stable identity proved to be a perennial battle. This chapter compares the experiences of nuclear engineers in the USA, UK, and Canada over their first seven decades, focusing on how identities were shaped in distinct political, occupational, and disciplinary environments. It links this work to sociology of the professions, to history of technology, and to cultural history.
Sean F. Johnston
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199692118
- eISBN:
- 9780191740732
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199692118.001.0001
- Subject:
- Physics, History of Physics
This book follows nuclear engineers, specialists in a field described by early participants as a ‘strange journey through Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘What Buck Rogers reads about when he reads’. Their ...
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This book follows nuclear engineers, specialists in a field described by early participants as a ‘strange journey through Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘What Buck Rogers reads about when he reads’. Their hidden origins trace back to the discovery of the neutron and the cascade of knowledge and applications released by the chain reaction. Unlike the atomic bomb which motivated their creation, nuclear specialists in the USA, Britain, and Canada did not burst into visibility at the end of the Second World War. Cosseted and cloistered by their governments, they worked in secrecy for a further decade to explore applications of atomic energy at a handful of national laboratories. The identities of these unusually voiceless experts—forming a uniquely state-managed discipline—were shaped in the context of pre-war nuclear physics, wartime industrial management, post-war politics, and utopian energy programmes. Even after their eventual emergence at universities and companies, nuclear workers carried the enduring legacy of their origins. Their shared experiences shaped not only their identities, but our collective memories of the nuclear age. And as illustrated by the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident seven decades after the Manhattan Project began, they are still seen conflictingly as selfless heroes or as mistrusted guardians of an unbottled and malevolent genie. Based on extensive archival research and interviews with participants, this bottom-up account tracks these shadowy specialists and how they evolved to influence late twentieth-century science, industry, and culture.Less
This book follows nuclear engineers, specialists in a field described by early participants as a ‘strange journey through Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘What Buck Rogers reads about when he reads’. Their hidden origins trace back to the discovery of the neutron and the cascade of knowledge and applications released by the chain reaction. Unlike the atomic bomb which motivated their creation, nuclear specialists in the USA, Britain, and Canada did not burst into visibility at the end of the Second World War. Cosseted and cloistered by their governments, they worked in secrecy for a further decade to explore applications of atomic energy at a handful of national laboratories. The identities of these unusually voiceless experts—forming a uniquely state-managed discipline—were shaped in the context of pre-war nuclear physics, wartime industrial management, post-war politics, and utopian energy programmes. Even after their eventual emergence at universities and companies, nuclear workers carried the enduring legacy of their origins. Their shared experiences shaped not only their identities, but our collective memories of the nuclear age. And as illustrated by the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident seven decades after the Manhattan Project began, they are still seen conflictingly as selfless heroes or as mistrusted guardians of an unbottled and malevolent genie. Based on extensive archival research and interviews with participants, this bottom-up account tracks these shadowy specialists and how they evolved to influence late twentieth-century science, industry, and culture.
Zuoyue Wang
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226605852
- eISBN:
- 9780226606040
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226606040.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
In the mid-1980s, American and Chinese scientists began to engage each other in a low-key manner in nuclear arms control that would develop into wide-ranging bilateral interactions to the present, ...
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In the mid-1980s, American and Chinese scientists began to engage each other in a low-key manner in nuclear arms control that would develop into wide-ranging bilateral interactions to the present, even withstanding geopolitical changes brought by the Tiananmen tragedy in 1989 and the end of the Cold War. This paper explores these important and yet little-known transnational scientific interactions and addresses a number of issues relevant to the writing of history of science and technology: the proper roles of scientists and experts in national policy and international diplomacy, the social and political values of transnational scientific discussions and ethnic scientific networking, the potentials and limits of transnational knowledge circulation in sensitive areas such as nuclear weapons, and the possibility of historical learning in policy making as the world struggles to deal with global problems such as nuclear proliferation and climate change.Less
In the mid-1980s, American and Chinese scientists began to engage each other in a low-key manner in nuclear arms control that would develop into wide-ranging bilateral interactions to the present, even withstanding geopolitical changes brought by the Tiananmen tragedy in 1989 and the end of the Cold War. This paper explores these important and yet little-known transnational scientific interactions and addresses a number of issues relevant to the writing of history of science and technology: the proper roles of scientists and experts in national policy and international diplomacy, the social and political values of transnational scientific discussions and ethnic scientific networking, the potentials and limits of transnational knowledge circulation in sensitive areas such as nuclear weapons, and the possibility of historical learning in policy making as the world struggles to deal with global problems such as nuclear proliferation and climate change.
Trevor Pinch
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- August 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780197511121
- eISBN:
- 9780197511169
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197511121.003.0015
- Subject:
- Music, Psychology of Music, History, Western
This afterword to Testing Hearing: The Making of Modern Aurality focuses on the history of the testing sciences and the politics of testing as illuminated by the book’s twelve constituent case ...
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This afterword to Testing Hearing: The Making of Modern Aurality focuses on the history of the testing sciences and the politics of testing as illuminated by the book’s twelve constituent case studies. Most testing is mundane, routine, and ongoing. However, as this book shows, it can be critiqued. Asking what is at stake in testing offers the possibility of doing it in a different way. Because it inevitably involves cultural and social assumptions and politics, testing must deal with unruly humans as well as nonhumans. Testing can be unpredictable and subject to multiple interpretations. There are practices in testing technology that resist commensuration and build on a more radical politics.Less
This afterword to Testing Hearing: The Making of Modern Aurality focuses on the history of the testing sciences and the politics of testing as illuminated by the book’s twelve constituent case studies. Most testing is mundane, routine, and ongoing. However, as this book shows, it can be critiqued. Asking what is at stake in testing offers the possibility of doing it in a different way. Because it inevitably involves cultural and social assumptions and politics, testing must deal with unruly humans as well as nonhumans. Testing can be unpredictable and subject to multiple interpretations. There are practices in testing technology that resist commensuration and build on a more radical politics.