Groups audience:
Dear Members of the Technology Working Group:
As many participants requested, we are returning to the question of canon in history of technology in next Tuesday's TWG meeting (May 21, 1-2:30 eastern time US). We had a great discussion last fall, and will take the issue up again next week. Does a canon of sorts operate within 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. 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. Please bring along any syllabi or reading lists you are willing to describe or share, and think about what works you think really important for people in the field to know.
We do hope you will join us.
Thanks,
Jennifer and Ben
Jennifer Alexander and Ben Gross, co-conveners of the Technology Working Group.