Techno Redemption (WAS Re: M&D c50 The Golem)

[bandwraith at aol.com]

What isn't true? Read the article before you go off half-cocked. If you can't get institutional access I'll email it to you. She's writing from within the context of "American Studies" and making the case that that particular discipline within the Academy is situated to add a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective to all the numerous studies which have considered the issue, not that many scholars haven't written about it. 



-----Original Message-----
From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thu, Apr 4, 2013 9:34 am
Subject: Re: Techno Redemption (WAS Re: M&D c50 The Golem)


This simply isn't true. American scholars have studied this matter in great depth. Moreover,  the issue of stewardship is an essential part of the study of technics in America, and in nearly every department at Universities in America. the ethics, the ideological forces embedded in technics is the focus of intense scholarship. I can provide a long list of the books I've read on this. Most of these are common on syllabi at Amrfican colleges. 



On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 8:34 AM, <bandwraith at aol.com> wrote:

 
"Slow and Low Progress," or Why American Studies Should Do Technology
Author: de la Peña, Carolyn
Publication info: American Quarterly 58. 3 (Sep 2006): 915-941,981.
 
This essay suggests that scholars in American studies have something to learn from Mary Shelley. We in the United States frequently tell stories of technological redemption and technological damnation. We do not, however, spend much time considering stories of technological stewardship. A legacy of positivism has embedded our political, social, and cultural systems with a disturbing patina of technological "neutrality." And, in many ways, we as scholars have contributed to this legacy of positivism by failing to critique technology as both substance and ideology in American cultural life. The field of American studies has largely left questions of technology to others, in spite of our early leadership in innovative methods of technological analysis and cultural critique. And while discipline-based inquiries into technology have been immensely useful at revealing particular histories and consequences of American technology, they have not been primarily focused on issues of diversity, equity, and justice that are fundamental to our field. Nor have they been written with a particular focus on interdisciplinary connections that embed everyday actions within their larger political and cultural systems



-----Original Message-----
From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: bandwraith <bandwraith at aol.com>
Cc: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, Apr 3, 2013 10:47 pm
Subject: Re: M&D c50 The Golem


 
 “The function of science fiction is not only to predict the future, but to prevent it."   Ray Bradbury  

On Wednesday, April 3, 2013, wrote:

A' and it's worth pointing out that if Doc Frankenstein would've just cut the monster a little slack and exercised a little responsibility for his creation, things might have turned out better. Is it too late? I'd like to know.



-----Original Message-----
From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: bandwraith <bandwraith at aol.com>
Cc: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, Apr 3, 2013 10:09 pm
Subject: Re: M&D c50 The Golem


Mary Shelly resurrected the Golem most nobly. And it still has legs. 


Frankenstein is about hubris, as is the Golem.
Technology is Modern Hubris.





 









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