IS THERE A CANON IN THE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY II: Identity of the field
At the request of TWG members, we will continue our fall discussion of the idea of a canon in the history of technology. We had a great discussion last September, and people have wanted to follow up. So: does a canon of sorts operate in the history of technology?
At issue, really, is the identity of the field. This includes considering how identity and canon can constrain a field, and how coherent such an identity is or needs to be. As we wrote last fall, "[a] canon can help a field develop a unique and deep identity; a canon can also constrain work and artificially limit a field's boundaries. There may well be something to be said for a certain amount of incoherence in a discipline."
Last fall we moved toward considering canon as having two facets, affecting work that gets published and also work that is chosen for teaching, especially graduate teaching. But we by no means exhausted the discussion. Also of importance are changing valences of the central term "technology", which, as Steven Walton pointed out, increasingly refers to computing and nothing else.
Please join us for a wide-ranging discussion. Bring along any syllabi or reading lists you are willing to describe or share, and think about the works you think important for people in the field to know.
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