[Sci-tech-public] STS Circle, February 7th - Jo Guldi - (please RSVP)

[Harvard STS]

*STS Circle at Harvard*
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*Jo Guldi*
*Harvard Society of Fellows*
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*Britain Invents the Infrastructure State*
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Monday, February 7th
12:15-2:00 p.m.
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100, Room 106

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Lunch is provided if you RSVP.
Please RSVP to sts <sts at hks.harvard.edu>@hks.harvard.edu<sts at hks.harvard.edu>
 by 5pm Thursday, February 3rd.

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*Abstract:* The “infrastructure state” suggests that the origins of modern
bureaucracies lie with the state’s relationship to territory and
centralization – the building of infrastructure -- as opposed to the
mobilization of bodies through public health and welfare.  The
"infrastructure state" is identified as the moment when nations began to
mobilize their resources not only for the policing of boundaries but also
for the provision of lighthouses, ports, bridges, and roads, connecting
hinterlands into a single territory united by trade.  This paper presents
the case that a vast civilian bureaucracy emerged to oversee road-building
in Britain between 1790 and 1808.  It surveys the role of postcolonial
tensions with Scotland and Ireland, the manufacture of the civil engineer,
and the emergence of expert rule.

*Biography*: Jo Guldi is a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows
and a Mellon Fellow in Digital History at the University of Chicago.  Her
forthcoming book, The Road to Rule (Harvard University Press 2011), tells
the story of how Britain invented the infrastructure state and strangers
stopped talking on the public street.  She is currently working on a
methodology of digital history and a history of capitalism and its
relationship with land since 1350.

A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard events can be found on our website:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/
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