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More needs she the divine
Textual hunter-gathering leads me to some unusual places. On Monday the University Library thwarted me as I tried to harpoon its copy of The Social Construction of Technological Systems (my insufficiently quiet "Bugger!", hissed on seeing the gap on the shelf, amused one person at least). So today I want to the HPS (history and philosophy of science) department, and sat in its small but very good library. You have to walk past the entrance to the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, which has Many Interesting Maps and Devices. At the desk, I filled in a form to be allowed to enter the library; unsure of one bit ('status') I left the section blank, but between us the very pleasant librarian and myself decided that our best option was to circle an option that made me a senior member of the university.
On the bus, I had been reading Le Guin's latest book, Changing Planes, and when I got to the story about the Taoist ospreys I remembered how she has that thing about attempting not to build narrative solely around conflict. In the library, one of the articles recommended to me was about the (failed) introduction of the French electric car (the VEL); the second article was about Portuguese expansion in the early modern period. Cars and guns, guns and cars. In the introduction to The Technology of Orgasm, a history of the vibrator, Rachel Maines notes how one reviewer of an article commented that she "should have used radar detection devices in automobiles as [her] example of a socially camouflaged technology". I think her choice was better.
I read the first article, then went for a browse through the books. I pulled down The Talking Cure: Literary Representations of Psychoanalysis. I read the chapter about Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, and noted a bit from the introduction that described "the magical power of language to alleviate suffering".
Partway through the second article (which was giving me a crash course on actor network theory and had some other stuff about the Portuguese) I read: "a system - here the galley [don't ask] - associates everything from humans to the wind. It depends precisely on a combination of social and technical engineering in an environment filled with indifferent or overtly hostile physical or social actors". Being both conflict averse and suggestible, I just wrote I hate this in my notes in bubblegum gel pen.
A little later, and pretty ravenous, I went to Marks and Spencers to buy some lunch. All social and technical systems proved indifferent and quite possibly hostile: the woman in front was moving on 33rpm plus the credit card machine really did not want to admit her existence. I went on to prove more than one bit of today's reading correct by feeling much better for imagining myself tearing limbs apart whilst screaming, "GET A FUCKING MOVE ON, WILL YOU!"
There is a conference here at the end of next week: Filming Cities: The Modern Metropolis and Visual Media, which I would very much like to attend. Henry Jenkins is presenting on the Friday: From Zion to Permutation City: Mapping the Urban Imagination in Contemporary Science Fiction. Alas, I am not able to be there - I shall be spending the day with my supervisors.
On the bus, I had been reading Le Guin's latest book, Changing Planes, and when I got to the story about the Taoist ospreys I remembered how she has that thing about attempting not to build narrative solely around conflict. In the library, one of the articles recommended to me was about the (failed) introduction of the French electric car (the VEL); the second article was about Portuguese expansion in the early modern period. Cars and guns, guns and cars. In the introduction to The Technology of Orgasm, a history of the vibrator, Rachel Maines notes how one reviewer of an article commented that she "should have used radar detection devices in automobiles as [her] example of a socially camouflaged technology". I think her choice was better.
I read the first article, then went for a browse through the books. I pulled down The Talking Cure: Literary Representations of Psychoanalysis. I read the chapter about Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, and noted a bit from the introduction that described "the magical power of language to alleviate suffering".
Partway through the second article (which was giving me a crash course on actor network theory and had some other stuff about the Portuguese) I read: "a system - here the galley [don't ask] - associates everything from humans to the wind. It depends precisely on a combination of social and technical engineering in an environment filled with indifferent or overtly hostile physical or social actors". Being both conflict averse and suggestible, I just wrote I hate this in my notes in bubblegum gel pen.
A little later, and pretty ravenous, I went to Marks and Spencers to buy some lunch. All social and technical systems proved indifferent and quite possibly hostile: the woman in front was moving on 33rpm plus the credit card machine really did not want to admit her existence. I went on to prove more than one bit of today's reading correct by feeling much better for imagining myself tearing limbs apart whilst screaming, "GET A FUCKING MOVE ON, WILL YOU!"
There is a conference here at the end of next week: Filming Cities: The Modern Metropolis and Visual Media, which I would very much like to attend. Henry Jenkins is presenting on the Friday: From Zion to Permutation City: Mapping the Urban Imagination in Contemporary Science Fiction. Alas, I am not able to be there - I shall be spending the day with my supervisors.
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Altariel, sleepwalking round the city. But aren't you supposed to do that *after* you've murdered your supervisors?
Thanks, A, I enjoyed that. I love the topics of the articles, and the bit about radar detection devices. Oh, and 'the magical power of language'. And the bubblegum gel pen. And... :-)
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Take them with you. Make sure they buy the popcorn.
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That´s one of the constants of the universe, I fear. Should be made into another Law of Thermodynamics.
"the magical power of language to alleviate suffering".
Theocritus Idyll XI proved that ... 23 centuries before.
"There's no drug, Nicias, to cure desire: no
Hot compress, powder, ointment, or suspension
Except for song: a sweet alleviation,
But not so easy, sometimes."
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Which of course is why I'm curious to know what you're studying? It's sounding like a bit of a foray I made a number of years ago when studying the social construction of risk. Feel free to drop a note offlist (off-journal?) if you prefer.
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