"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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