Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2020.1817407
Jennifer Alexander
ABSTRACT British mechanical engineer Jack Keiser’s postwar career in industrial education was simultaneously a career in justice work and Christian industrial mission. This paper examines the Christian critique of industry Keiser developed early in his career, as he transitioned in 1949–1950 into his life’s work in firm-based industrial education, and asks how historians of technology might interpret a critique that characterized industry in hyperbolic terms as enslaving or demonic. Keiser’s was part of an international critique connected to three important post-war Christian institutions: Student Christian Movement, the Industrial Mission Movement, and the World Council of Churches. He engaged with justice at both an intimate and a cosmic level, intimately through face-to-face relationships with apprentices and trainees under his supervision, and cosmically by engaging with the biblical prophets through whom God called for justice.
{"title":"An engineering career as industrial mission: Jack Keiser in post-war Britain","authors":"Jennifer Alexander","doi":"10.1080/07341512.2020.1817407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1817407","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT British mechanical engineer Jack Keiser’s postwar career in industrial education was simultaneously a career in justice work and Christian industrial mission. This paper examines the Christian critique of industry Keiser developed early in his career, as he transitioned in 1949–1950 into his life’s work in firm-based industrial education, and asks how historians of technology might interpret a critique that characterized industry in hyperbolic terms as enslaving or demonic. Keiser’s was part of an international critique connected to three important post-war Christian institutions: Student Christian Movement, the Industrial Mission Movement, and the World Council of Churches. He engaged with justice at both an intimate and a cosmic level, intimately through face-to-face relationships with apprentices and trainees under his supervision, and cosmically by engaging with the biblical prophets through whom God called for justice.","PeriodicalId":45996,"journal":{"name":"History and Technology","volume":"10 1","pages":"263 - 291"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87438880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2020.1809073
S. Moon
ABSTRACT This article explores narratives connecting Islam and technology that arose in Indonesia during the New Order period (1965–1998). These public discussions defined technological work, especially work in high technology, as a vital spiritual and economic arena for Indonesian Muslims. By asserting technology as a site for spiritual action, Indonesian Islamic activists offered a redefinition of economic development intended to alter both its goals and the character of participation in the development enterprise. In doing so, they framed technological activity as a crucial form of moral agency. Embracing the postsecular turn in historical scholarship which emphasizes attention to the ongoing social processes which define religiosity and secularity, this article investigates how religion and technology are entangled in contemporary Indonesia.
{"title":"A sociotechnical order for the umma: connecting Islam and technology in Suharto’s Indonesia","authors":"S. Moon","doi":"10.1080/07341512.2020.1809073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1809073","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article explores narratives connecting Islam and technology that arose in Indonesia during the New Order period (1965–1998). These public discussions defined technological work, especially work in high technology, as a vital spiritual and economic arena for Indonesian Muslims. By asserting technology as a site for spiritual action, Indonesian Islamic activists offered a redefinition of economic development intended to alter both its goals and the character of participation in the development enterprise. In doing so, they framed technological activity as a crucial form of moral agency. Embracing the postsecular turn in historical scholarship which emphasizes attention to the ongoing social processes which define religiosity and secularity, this article investigates how religion and technology are entangled in contemporary Indonesia.","PeriodicalId":45996,"journal":{"name":"History and Technology","volume":"11 1","pages":"240 - 262"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79471673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2020.1816059
Timothy H. B. Stoneman
ABSTRACT For over a millennium, Catholic and Protestant traditions have deployed technologies to address the central paradox of the Christian faith: God’s absence after Easter. The following essay brings together scholarship on religious technics in the Christian Latin West during the medieval and early modern periods with a focus on the performance of presence. Medieval actors utilized an array of techniques, instruments, and contraptions to manifest the divine power present in holy matter. The movement of artifacts and people across medieval and early modern horizons mobilized and multiplied the effects of sacred proximity. The Society of Jesus’ emphasis on sensuality in worship and spectacle linked older forms of ritual piety with routinized religion. The shift from a predominantly Christian to modern culture in the West did not terminate organized religion’s close association with technology, but extended the experience of spiritual presence in the West through industrial and post-industrial, digital means.
{"title":"Presencing the divine: religion and technology in the Latin West","authors":"Timothy H. B. Stoneman","doi":"10.1080/07341512.2020.1816059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1816059","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT For over a millennium, Catholic and Protestant traditions have deployed technologies to address the central paradox of the Christian faith: God’s absence after Easter. The following essay brings together scholarship on religious technics in the Christian Latin West during the medieval and early modern periods with a focus on the performance of presence. Medieval actors utilized an array of techniques, instruments, and contraptions to manifest the divine power present in holy matter. The movement of artifacts and people across medieval and early modern horizons mobilized and multiplied the effects of sacred proximity. The Society of Jesus’ emphasis on sensuality in worship and spectacle linked older forms of ritual piety with routinized religion. The shift from a predominantly Christian to modern culture in the West did not terminate organized religion’s close association with technology, but extended the experience of spiritual presence in the West through industrial and post-industrial, digital means.","PeriodicalId":45996,"journal":{"name":"History and Technology","volume":"8 1","pages":"187 - 204"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72710286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2020.1816339
A. Bix
ABSTRACT The relationship of Modern Orthodox Jewish communities to technology is mediated by the calendar, following requirements to keep the Sabbath holy. As nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twentyfirst-century inventions reshaped work, public spaces, and domestic living, rabbis intensely debated whether, how, and why observant Jewish people should avoid using electric switches, kitchen appliances, elevators, and other everyday devices on the Sabbath. To justify their decisions, rabbis interrogated minute technical details of these objects. Sabbath prohibitions promoted innovation, as rabbis collaborated with Jewish engineers to create what they judged to be Sabbath-compliant adaptions of everyday technologies. Given that prominent rabbis often disagreed about proper technology use on the Sabbath, Jewish families had the opportunity to decide for themselves what counted as authentic devotion in handling personal and domestic technologies.
{"title":"‘Remember the Sabbath’: a history of technological decisions and innovation in Orthodox Jewish communities","authors":"A. Bix","doi":"10.1080/07341512.2020.1816339","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1816339","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The relationship of Modern Orthodox Jewish communities to technology is mediated by the calendar, following requirements to keep the Sabbath holy. As nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twentyfirst-century inventions reshaped work, public spaces, and domestic living, rabbis intensely debated whether, how, and why observant Jewish people should avoid using electric switches, kitchen appliances, elevators, and other everyday devices on the Sabbath. To justify their decisions, rabbis interrogated minute technical details of these objects. Sabbath prohibitions promoted innovation, as rabbis collaborated with Jewish engineers to create what they judged to be Sabbath-compliant adaptions of everyday technologies. Given that prominent rabbis often disagreed about proper technology use on the Sabbath, Jewish families had the opportunity to decide for themselves what counted as authentic devotion in handling personal and domestic technologies.","PeriodicalId":45996,"journal":{"name":"History and Technology","volume":"25 1","pages":"205 - 239"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78531325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2020.1766916
S. Esselborn, K. Zachmann
ABSTRACT The article explores the introduction of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) for nuclear energy in the two German states, the FRG and the GDR since the late 1960s. We argue that PRA - which promised to make potential dangers associated with the new technology calculable, comparable and seemingly controllable by reducing them to numerical terms - is best understood as an evidence practice, aiming to (re-)establish intersubjective agreement on nuclear safety through quantification. As such, the introduction of PRA was from the beginning also a political question, tied to the destabilization of alternative evidence practices. While in both the FRG and the GDR, the relativization of the promise of absolute safety inherent in the new method proved problematic, this was an even bigger obstacle in the socialist East. Although PRA ultimately failed to (re-)establish a societal consensus on nuclear energy in Germany, its institutionalization shaped the societal discourse on dangerous technologies.
{"title":"Nuclear safety by numbers. Probabilistic risk analysis as an evidence practice for technical safety in the German debate on nuclear energy","authors":"S. Esselborn, K. Zachmann","doi":"10.1080/07341512.2020.1766916","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1766916","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article explores the introduction of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) for nuclear energy in the two German states, the FRG and the GDR since the late 1960s. We argue that PRA - which promised to make potential dangers associated with the new technology calculable, comparable and seemingly controllable by reducing them to numerical terms - is best understood as an evidence practice, aiming to (re-)establish intersubjective agreement on nuclear safety through quantification. As such, the introduction of PRA was from the beginning also a political question, tied to the destabilization of alternative evidence practices. While in both the FRG and the GDR, the relativization of the promise of absolute safety inherent in the new method proved problematic, this was an even bigger obstacle in the socialist East. Although PRA ultimately failed to (re-)establish a societal consensus on nuclear energy in Germany, its institutionalization shaped the societal discourse on dangerous technologies.","PeriodicalId":45996,"journal":{"name":"History and Technology","volume":"37 1","pages":"129 - 164"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77209479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2020.1760516
B. Robertson
ABSTRACT Contrary to stereotypes that portray people with disabilities as passive recipients of technological innovation, individuals with sensory and mobility impairments have played key roles in the invention, design and use of adaptive or assistive devices over the course of the twentieth century. This article interrogates this history through a case study focusing on the research program of James Swail, an engineer with the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada from 1947 until 1985. As someone who was himself blind, Swail’s predicated his design work on an asset-based understanding of disability. He strived to disrupt conceptions of both the technological functionality and economic rationality of technologies produced for and by disabled people in mid-twentieth century Canada. Framed within a medical model, however, the overall fate of these machines mirrored back the imagined inability of people with disabilities to become fully participating members of the society in which they lived.
{"title":"‘Rehabilitation aids for the blind’: disability and technological knowledge in Canada, 1947-1985","authors":"B. Robertson","doi":"10.1080/07341512.2020.1760516","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1760516","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Contrary to stereotypes that portray people with disabilities as passive recipients of technological innovation, individuals with sensory and mobility impairments have played key roles in the invention, design and use of adaptive or assistive devices over the course of the twentieth century. This article interrogates this history through a case study focusing on the research program of James Swail, an engineer with the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada from 1947 until 1985. As someone who was himself blind, Swail’s predicated his design work on an asset-based understanding of disability. He strived to disrupt conceptions of both the technological functionality and economic rationality of technologies produced for and by disabled people in mid-twentieth century Canada. Framed within a medical model, however, the overall fate of these machines mirrored back the imagined inability of people with disabilities to become fully participating members of the society in which they lived.","PeriodicalId":45996,"journal":{"name":"History and Technology","volume":"95 1","pages":"30 - 53"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75969283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2020.1765618
D. Peyerl, Silvia Fernanda de Mendonça Figueirôa
ABSTRACT From the late nineteenth century onwards the Brazilian state founded several public institutions involved in oil exploration: the Geographical and Geological Commission of São Paulo (CGG, 1886), the Geological and Mineralogical Survey of Brazil (SGMB, 1907), the National Oil Council (CNP, 1938), and the state-run oil company Petrobras (1953). This article details the history of geophysical exploration in Brazil over the first half of the twentieth century and its role in transforming the country into a major oil producer, stressing the involvement of foreign experts and the role of imported technology. It focuses on the close relationship between Brazil and the United States in applying geophysics techniques to scrutinize Brazilian territory in the search for oil while unveiling the commercial and political dimensions of such technoscientific exchanges.
{"title":"Applied geophysics in Brazil and the development of a national oil industry (1930 - 1960)","authors":"D. Peyerl, Silvia Fernanda de Mendonça Figueirôa","doi":"10.1080/07341512.2020.1765618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1765618","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT From the late nineteenth century onwards the Brazilian state founded several public institutions involved in oil exploration: the Geographical and Geological Commission of São Paulo (CGG, 1886), the Geological and Mineralogical Survey of Brazil (SGMB, 1907), the National Oil Council (CNP, 1938), and the state-run oil company Petrobras (1953). This article details the history of geophysical exploration in Brazil over the first half of the twentieth century and its role in transforming the country into a major oil producer, stressing the involvement of foreign experts and the role of imported technology. It focuses on the close relationship between Brazil and the United States in applying geophysics techniques to scrutinize Brazilian territory in the search for oil while unveiling the commercial and political dimensions of such technoscientific exchanges.","PeriodicalId":45996,"journal":{"name":"History and Technology","volume":"27 1","pages":"104 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83504959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2020.1757972
Edward Jones‐Imhotep
Historically, automata had always relied on a trick; and they’re still playing it. Imagine a factory. On the shop floor stands a single worker – a young girl. Surrounding her are the hulking frames...
{"title":"The ghost factories: histories of automata and artificial life","authors":"Edward Jones‐Imhotep","doi":"10.1080/07341512.2020.1757972","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1757972","url":null,"abstract":"Historically, automata had always relied on a trick; and they’re still playing it. Imagine a factory. On the shop floor stands a single worker – a young girl. Surrounding her are the hulking frames...","PeriodicalId":45996,"journal":{"name":"History and Technology","volume":"136 1","pages":"29 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79621806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2020.1759302
Michael Lachney, E. Foster
ABSTRACT The field of science and technology studies (STS) has recently formalized a performative category of scholarship called ‘making and doing’. Making and doing recognizes engaged and reflexive practices that help STS claims and ideas travel between social worlds by means other than academic publications and presentations. At this time, little attention has been paid to the historical conditions and epistemologies that helped to construct this category. While STS may appear to be merely exploiting the twenty-first century popularity of the maker movement, we have found that feminist and ethnographic approaches to science played historically significant roles in the epistemic formation and foundation of the movement itself. By tracing the influence of STS on the maker movement to late twentieth century collaborations between Sherry Turkle and Seymour Papert, we aim to interfere in making and doing narratives by proposing to hold STS accountable for the socio-technical world-making in which it is implicated.
{"title":"Historicizing making and doing: Seymour Papert, Sherry Turkle, and epistemological foundations of the maker movement","authors":"Michael Lachney, E. Foster","doi":"10.1080/07341512.2020.1759302","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2020.1759302","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The field of science and technology studies (STS) has recently formalized a performative category of scholarship called ‘making and doing’. Making and doing recognizes engaged and reflexive practices that help STS claims and ideas travel between social worlds by means other than academic publications and presentations. At this time, little attention has been paid to the historical conditions and epistemologies that helped to construct this category. While STS may appear to be merely exploiting the twenty-first century popularity of the maker movement, we have found that feminist and ethnographic approaches to science played historically significant roles in the epistemic formation and foundation of the movement itself. By tracing the influence of STS on the maker movement to late twentieth century collaborations between Sherry Turkle and Seymour Papert, we aim to interfere in making and doing narratives by proposing to hold STS accountable for the socio-technical world-making in which it is implicated.","PeriodicalId":45996,"journal":{"name":"History and Technology","volume":"21 1","pages":"54 - 82"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87182486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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