SIRG reading group 24 November 2010
The next meeting of the SIRG reading group will take place on Wednesday 24 November @ 2.00 pm in the David Gorham Library (first floor Venables, N1015). This month we have two classics from the History of Technology/STS canon for your consideration:
Thomas Parke Hughes, ‘The Evolution of Large Technological Systems’, in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Trevor Pinch, 51-82. MIT Press, 1987.
Ruth Shwartz Cowan, ‘How the Refrigerator Got its Hum’, in The Social Shaping of Technology: How the Refrigerator Got its Hum, edited by Donald Mackenzie and Judy Wajcman, 202-218. Open University Press, 1985.
A copy of Hughes’s chapter was distributed by Allan; a scanned copy of the Cowan piece (including the introduction to the edited volume that offers a useful refresher/orientation to the social shaping/construction movement) can be downloaded here:
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/sirg/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/HowTheRefrigeratorGotItsHum.tiff [11mb - use right click save file - there are some printed copies next to the photocopier opposite the ICT kitchen, first floor Venables]
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be served at 2 pm. I look forward to seeing you there.
All are welcome to the SIRG reading group, which is usually held the last Wednesday of every month. For further details, contact the group’s convener: Ian Martin.