[Sci-tech-public] Colloquium - October 20th with John Tresch

[Bianca Singletary]

"The Subway Series"

A Joint Colloquium Between Harvard History of Science and MIT Program in
Science, Technology, and Society

 

Love and Engines: The Saint-Simonians' Conversation Technologies

John Tresch, University of Pennsylvania

 

Abstract:

 

The movement of Saint-Simonianism flourished in France around 1830; its
adherents contributed helped direct the growth of French railroads,
industry, banking, and socialism. Many of them had studied at the Ecole
Polytechnique; it has been argued that this training prepared them to
embrace the technocratic vision of a society organized around production. We
might go farther in looking for the impact of Polytechnical training on
Saint-Simonianism. This paper suggests that research into the capacities of
steam engines in the 1820s was an important source for their energetic view
of nature and "pantheist" metaphysics. Further, the concept of "conversion"
tied together their fascination with industrial machinery, their predictions
about social evolution, and their efforts-- using a wide range of symbolic,
poetic, and musical "technologies"-- to change their audiences' minds and
hearts. This case of the "French technological sublime" shows how
engineering science combined with the ideas and attitudes of romanticism to
give fuel to early industrialization.

 

 

 

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

4pm

Located at Harvard Science Center 469

 

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