*STS Circle at Harvard* *
* *Lee Vinsel * *Program on Science, Technology, and Society and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard* * * on * The Politics of the Dummy Light: Liberalism and US Federal Regulation of Technological Risk, 1960-1980 * Monday, November 7th 12:15-2:00 p.m. 124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100, Room 106 Lunch is provided if you RSVP. Please RSVP to sts <[email protected]>@hks.harvard.edu<[email protected]>by 5pm Thursday, November 3rd. * * *Abstract:* 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. 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. *Biography*: *Lee Vinsel** *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. A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard events can be found on our website: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/ Follow us on Facebook: STS@Harvard <http://www.facebook.com/HarvardSTS>
<<image001.gif>>
_______________________________________________ Sci-tech-public mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sci-tech-public
