The next SIRG seminar — Wednesday 25 May @ 2 pm in the David Gorham Library (first floor Venables, N1015) — will be a round table discussion on technological determinism. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx’s 1994 edited volume Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism is a suggested starting point for discussion. The book’s introduction and three sample chapters are attached. The entire book is available from the OU’s Net Library.
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available. I look forward to seeing you there.
Ian
1-Marx+Smith-DoesTechnologyDriveHistory-Intro2.pdf
2-Heilbroner-TechnologicalDeterminismRevisited2.pdf
3-Williams-ThePoliticalAndFeministDimensionsOfTechnologicalChange.pdf
4-Marx-TheIdeaOfTechnologyAndPostmodernPessimism1.pdf
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.
The next meeting of the SIRG reading group will take place on Wednesday 27 October @ 2.00pm in the David Gorham Library (first floor Venables, N1015). This month we have two items for consideration. The first is a work-in-progress book chapter from Chris Williams of the OU’s History department entitled:
‘The origins of the UK’s Police National Computer, 1958-1977: surveillance, power and the government machine’
Chris will be joining us this month.
The second is a draft article by SIRG member Allan Jones, which he will be submitting to the journal Public Understanding of Science, entitled:
‘Gatekeepers and framers: The producer’s role in early BBC science broadcasts’
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 convenor: Ian Martin.
The next SIRG reading group will take place on Wednesday 28 April @ 2.00pm in the David Gorham Library. This month, as promised, we have some Bruno Latour:
Latour, Bruno. “Give me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World”. In Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science edited by Karin D. Knorr-Cetina and Michael Mulkay, 141-170. Sage, 1983. Available from:
http://www.bruno-latour.fr/articles/article/12-GIVE%20ME%20A%20LAB.pdf
Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory [the introduction and introduction to part 1]. Oxford University Press, 2005. A scanned copy [sorry, big pdf] is here:
Latour[2005]ReassemblingTheSocial.
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be served. 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 convenor: Ian Martin.
The next SIRG reading group will take place on Wednesday 31 March @ 12.20pm in the David Gorham Library. It’s an early start so that we can have lunch to celebrate Allan Jones successfully defending his PhD thesis earlier this month.
After the lunch we will be joined by colleagues from social sciences to discuss a work-in-progress paper by SIRG member, David Chapman, entitled ‘Is there really more information around today?’
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be served.
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 convenor: Ian Martin.
The next SIRG reading group will take place on Wednesday 24 February @ 2pm in the David Gorham Library. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be served.
For your consideration this month:
Gillespie, Tarleton. ‘Engineering a Principle: ‘End-to-End’ in the Design of the Internet.’ Social Studies of Science 36, no. 3 (June 2006), 427-457.
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 convenor: Ian Martin.
The first reading group of 2010 will be something a little different. Badruddozza has offered to give a short informal presentation of his PhD research plans at the meeting planned for Wednesday 27 January @ 2pm. So it won’t be a reading group as we know it, but hopefully there will still be some reading. He is planning to distribute copies of his proposal and an overview of the microcredit arena ahead of his talk. On the day we will also be joined by a colleague or two from the Development Policy and Practice (DPP) centre: http://dpp.open.ac.uk/.
Tea, coffee, etc available at 2pm.
ICT-based Information Systems and Organizational Change in Microcredit Organizations
Informal talk by Badruddozza Mia
2 pm Wednesday 27th January
David Gorham Library, Venables N1015
Badruddozza joined the Communication and Systems Department as a research student in November 2009.
In this informal talk he will briefly introduce his research plans and the background to his research interests.
The next SIRG reading group will take place on Wednesday 25 November @ 2pm in the David Gorham Library. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be served.
This month we are reading two chapters from Allan Jones’s doctoral thesis.
I look forward to seeing you all there next Wednesday. This will be the last reading group before the Christmas break. As usual, there’ll be time afterwards to discuss other SIRG related matters and in particular, with the CandS away day coming up, wondered if those who are attending could get together to talk about joint bids.
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 convenor: Ian Martin.
The next SIRG reading group will take place on Wednesday 28 October @ 2pm in the David Gorham library. For your consideration this month is another book from the SIRG library:
Carr, Nicholas. The Big Switch. W.W. Norton & Co, 2009.
I have placed a copy of Part 1: One Machine [chapters 1-5] in the SIRG folder on the hard disk of the photocopier opposite the kitchen 1st floor Venables. You can access the folder via a web interface [VPN required off-campus]
http://mfte003.open.ac.uk/docu_customfolder.html
A paper copy is also available next to the photocopier. You can print copies direct from the photocopier – instructions on the folder containing the copies.
I currently have the SIRG copy of the book, but I’ll bring it on 20 October 2009 if anybody wants to borrow it then. It’s a fairly quick read.
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided. Looking forward to seeing you all there.
New members are always welcome. Email me for further details.
Ian (i.martin@open.ac.uk)
The first SIRG reading group after the summer break will take place on Wednesday 30 September @ 2pm in the David Gorham library.
For your consideration this month are chapters from one of the many books I purchased with the SIRG £200. I thought we might start with a look at:
Webster, Frank. Theories of the Information Society, 3rd edition. Routledge, 2006.
I have placed a copy of the introduction, conclusion and chapters 2 & 9 in the usual place next to the photocopier opposite the kitchen 1st floor Venables. If anybody off-site needs a copy posting then let me know.
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided. Looking forward to seeing you all there.
New members are always welcome. Email me for further details.
Ian (i.martin@open.ac.uk)
Link to this month’s reading
The next SIRG seminar — Wednesday 25 May @ 2 pm in the David Gorham Library (first floor Venables, N1015) — will be a round table discussion on technological determinism. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx’s 1994 edited volume Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism is a suggested starting point for discussion. The book’s introduction and three sample chapters are attached. The entire book is available from the OU’s Net Library.