<br><div class="gmail_quote"><font color="#660000" size="4"><b>STS Circle at Harvard</b></font><div class="gmail_quote"><div>
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<div><font size="+1"><b>Lee Vinsel<br></b></font></div>
<div><i>Program on Science, Technology, and Society and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard</i></div>
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<div><font color="#000000">on</font></div>
<div><font size="+1"><b><br>The Politics of the Dummy Light: Liberalism and US Federal Regulation of Technological Risk, 1960-1980<br></b></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Monday, November 7th</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">12:15-2:00 p.m.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100, Room
106</font></div>
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<div><font color="#000000">Lunch is provided if you RSVP.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Please RSVP to</font> <a href="mailto:sts@hks.harvard.edu" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">sts</font></a><a href="mailto:sts@hks.harvard.edu" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">@hks.harvard.edu</font></a><font color="#000000"> by
5pm Thursday, November 3rd.</font></div>
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<div><b>Abstract:</b>
Do artifacts have politics? Langdon Winner asked that
question in the title of his influential 1980 article. Since then, it has
puzzled scholars in science and technology studies and the history of science
and technology. In this talk, I take Winner’s question as a provocation for
deeper analysis of the subtlety of politics. I follow Winner in arguing that
artifacts assuredly do have politics. In the US liberal society, however, these
politics are often weaker, subtler, and more diffuse than the oppressive,
authoritarian cases he explores. I examine the history of automotive air
pollution regulation as an iterative example of co-production:
“technology-forcing” regulations shaped technical change, while obdurate materiality
pushed policy-makers to respond in kind. The 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments
created some of the toughest technological standards in US history. Yet
policy-makers attempted—legally and technologically—to reconstitute the world
while respecting traditional boundaries of responsibility and
self-determination for both citizens and private firms.<span> </span>These efforts experienced great
resistance, however, as consumers bristled, emission control systems melted,
and automakers red-baited regulators. In such a context, mundane technology,
such as a dashboard light bulb, took on heated political meanings and, indeed,
embodied the political itself.
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<div><b>Biography</b>:
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><b style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Lee Vinsel</span></b><b> </b>holds a joint appointment as a
post-doctoral fellow with the Program on Science, Technology, & Society at
the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the School of Engineering &
Applied Sciences. In 2011, he earned his PhD in history from Carnegie Mellon
University, where he was a member of several interdisciplinary research groups,
including the Climate Decision Making Center. His book manuscript, “Braking
Detroit: State Management of the Automobile in the United States,” examines the
history of the automobile as a risky object and the actions local, state, and federal governments have taken to exorcise this “devil wagon.” His research
has been funded by a number of National Science Foundation grants as well as
several fellowships and awards.
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<div><font color="#000000">A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard
events can be found on our website:</font></div>
<div><a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/</font></a></div>
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