Technology and the Literary Imagination

Readings

Books Recommended for Purchase

DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York, NY: Penguin, 1999. ISBN: 9780140283303.

Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York, NY: Vintage, 1989. ISBN: 9780679721031.

Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1998. ISBN: 9780140436679.

Jewett, Sarah Orne. Country of the Pointed Firs. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005. ISBN: 9781593082628.

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. 2nd Norton Critical Edition. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2001. ISBN: 9780393972832.

McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature. New York, NY: Random House, 2006. ISBN: 9780812976083.

[S&C] = Smith, Merritt Roe, and Gregory Clancey, eds. Major Problems in the History of American Technology. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997. ISBN: 9780669354720.

Note: some of the cited readings are also linked to alternate free online versions.

LEC #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	What is technology? The history of technology - the concept, the word Aims of the course In-class reading: excerpt from Don DeLillo, White Noise, pp. 124-129 Discussion: What do we mean by technology? (PDF)	Ancillary reading Scharff, Robert, and Val Dusek, eds. “The Historical Background,” and “Defining Technology.” Part I and III in Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition - An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003, pp. ix-xi, 1-60, and 206-244. ISBN: 9780631222194. Introduction. Plato. “On Dialectic and ‘Techne’” (from the Republic). Artistotle. “On ‘Techne’ and ‘Episteme’” (from Nichomachean Ethics). Bacon, Francis. “On the Idols, the Scientific Study of Nature, and the Reformation of Education.” (Compiled from various sources). Kline, Stephen J. “What is Technology?” Gehlen, Arnold. “A Philosophical-Anthropological Perspective on Technology.” Pinch, Trevor J., and Wiebe E. Bijker. “The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts.” Winner, Langdon. “Social Constructivism: Opening the Black Box and Finding it Empty.” Schatzberg, Eric. “Technik Comes to America: Changing Meanings of Technology before 1930.” Technology and Culture 47, no. 3 (2006): 486-512.
2	Technology in America today	DeLillo, Don. White Noise. [S&C] “What is Technology?” pp. 1-25. Marx, Leo. “Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept.” Social Research 64, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 965-88. Ancillary reading Heilbroner, Robert. “Do Machines Make History?” Technology and Culture 8, no. 3 (July 1967): 335-345. Kateb, George. “Technology and Philosophy.” Social Research 64, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 1225-1246.
3	The enlightenment	Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia. Jefferson, Thomas, and Alexanderr Hamilton. “Debate over Manufactures.” In [S&C], pp. 103-142. Ancillary reading In Scharff and Dusek, eds., pp. 38-65: Kant, Immanuel. “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View.” Comte, Auguste. “The Nature and Importance of the Positive Philosophy.” Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “On the Sciences and Arts.” Whitehead, A. N. Science and the Modern World. New York, NY: Free Press, 1997, pp. 1-18 and 57-94, chapters 1 and 3-5. ISBN: 9780684836393.
4	Industrialization: A trans-atlantic debate	[S&C] “Inside Factory Systems.” pp. 144-157. Carlyle, Thomas. “Signs of the Times.” Walker, Timothy. “Defence of Mechanical Philosophy.” North American Review 33, no. 1 (1831). Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The Young American.” Ancillary reading Thoreau, Henry David. “Sounds.” Chapter IV in Walden. Peckham, Morse. “Toward a Theory of Romanticism.” PMLA 66, no. 2 (March 1951): 5-23. Williams, Raymond. “Carlyle,” “The Industrial Novels,” and “Marxism and Culture.” In Culture and Society: 1780-1950. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780231057011. In The Marx-Engels Reader. Edited by R. C. Tucker. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1978. ISBN: 9780393090406. Marx, Karl. “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” Translated by Martin Mulligan. ———. Preface to A Critique of Political Economy. ———. “Machinery and Modern Industry.” Chapter 15 in Capital, Vol. I, Part IV. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. ———. “Capitalism and the Modern Labor Process.” In Scharff and Dusek, pp. 66-79.
5	Technological dynamism	Adams, Henry. The Education of Henry Adams. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999, chapters 1-3, 22, 25, 33, and 34. ISBN: 9780192823694. (Download a version from Project Gutenberg.) Ancillary reading Arnold, Matthew. “Introduction,” and “Conclusion.” Chapters 1-3 in Culture and Anarchy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780521377966. (Download a version from Project Gutenberg.) Trachtenberg, Alan. “Mechanization Takes Command.” Chapter 2 in The Incorporation of America (selections). New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 2007, pp. 38-69. ISBN: 9780809058280. Williams, Raymond. “Introduction,” and “J. H. Newman and Matthew Arnold.” In Culture and Society: 1780-1950. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780231057011. Williams, Rosalind. “Afterword” to Castell’s The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (2004).
6	An epic of technological fatality (I)	Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick, chapters 1-40. Putnam, John B. “Whaling and Whalecraft: A Pictorial Account.” In Moby-Dick, 2nd Norton Critical Edition, pp. 447-454; followed by contemporary engravings, pp. 455-464.
7	An epic of technological fatality (II)	Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick, chapters 41-96. ———. “Hawthorne and His Mosses.” In Moby-Dick, 2nd Norton Critical Edition, pp. 517-532.
8	An epic of technological fatality (III)	Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick, chapter 97 – Epilogue. Melville’s letters at the time of Moby-Dick. In Moby-Dick, 2nd Norton Critical Edition, pp. 532-548.
9	The lost America	Jewett, S. O. The Country of the Pointed Firs. Marx, Leo. “The Idea of Nature in America.” Daedalus 137, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 8-21. McKibben, Bill. “The Challenge to Environmentalism.” Daedalus 137, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 5-7. Ritvo, Harriet. “Beasts in the Jungle (or wherever).” Daedalus 137, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 22-30. Kevles, Daniel J. “The Contested Earth: Science, Equity and the Environment.” Daedalus 137, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 80-95.
10	Ecological crisis (I)	Hersey, John. Hiroshima. Marx, Leo. “The Idea of Nature in America.” Daedelus 137, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 8-21. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. 25th anniversary ed. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987, pp. 1-100. ISBN: 9780395453902. Ancillary reading White, Lynn. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.” Science 155, no. 3767 (March 10, 1967): 1203-1207. Marx, Leo. “American Institutions and Ecological Ideals.” Science 170 (November 27, 1970): 945-952.
11	Ecological crisis (II)	McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature. Ancillary reading Cronon, William, ed. “The Trouble with Wilderness.” In Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1995, pp. 69-90. ISBN: 9780393038729. McKibben, Bill. “Walking Through an Idea.” Appalachia (Winter/Spring 2008): 32-36. [An excerpt from Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America’s Most Hopeful Landscape: Vermont’s Champlain Valley and New York’s Adirondacks. Crown, 2005.]
12	Student presentations Final paper and oral reports