Amy E. Wendling: Karl Marx on Technology and Alienation (2009)
Filed under book | Tags: · alienation, capitalism, communism, labour, machine, philosophy, philosophy of technology, revolution, technology, thermodynamics, value, women, work
“In Karl Marx on Technology and Alienation, Amy Wendling draws on lesser known archival materials, including Marx’s notebooks on women and patriarchy and technology to offer a new interpretation of Marx’s concept of alienation as it develops throughout his works. For Marx, technology exemplifies the interaction between human beings and nature. Marx’s description of this interaction is in transition throughout his works. An older, humanist and vitalist paradigm sets the human being against nature as a qualitatively different type of force. A newer, thermodynamic paradigm sets the human being and nature in continuity. Marx’s work occurs at the juncture of these paradigms and contains elements of each. This affects his deployment of the concept ‘labor’. Labor is demoted from its status as a meaningful human activity that confers political status and mastery of the natural world, and it becomes a mere nodal point where energy is transferred. Against this backdrop, Marx increasingly appealed not to meaningful labor but to the abolition of labor as the culmination of human freedom. He also shows how the labours of members of the working class, including women, are interpreted in the old and new paradigms.”
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
ISBN 0230224407, 9780230224407
272 pages
Reviews: Chris Arthur (Marx & Philosophy Review of Books, 2010), Richard Cotter (LSE Review of Books, 2013), Tom Bunyard (Historical Materialism, 2014), McKenzie Wark (Public Seminar, 2015).
Comment (0)Siegfried Giedion: Mechanization Takes Command (1948)
Filed under book | Tags: · agriculture, architecture, furniture, history of technology, industry, machine, movement, philosophy, philosophy of technology, production, technology
“First published in 1948, Mechanization Takes Command is an examination of mechanization and its effects on everyday life. A monumental figure in the field of architectural history, Siegfried Giedion traces the evolution and resulting philosophical implications of such disparate innovations as the slaughterhouse, the Yale lock, the assembly line, tractors, ovens, and “comfort” as defined by advancements in furniture design. A groundbreaking text when originally published, Giedion’s pioneering work remains an important contribution to architecture, philosophy, and technology studies.”
Publisher Oxford University Press, New York, 1948
Third printing, 1970
743 pages
via babyalanturing
Reviews: John E. Sawyer (The Journal of Economic History, 1949), Harry Elmer Barnes (American Journal of Sociology, 1949), William F. Ogburn (The American Historical Review, 1948), Henry Guerlac (American Quarterly, 1949), Donald Horton (American Sociological Review, 1948), Paul Zucker (The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 1949), Arthur P. Molella (Technology and Culture, 2002), Tom Vanderbilt (Bookforum, 2010), Bryan E. Norwood (Culture Machine, 2015).
PDF (removed on 2014-4-21 upon request of the University of Minnesota Press)
Comment (1)Peter Swirski (ed.): The Art and Science of Stanislaw Lem (2006)
Filed under book | Tags: · artificial intelligence, film, literary criticism, literature, robots, science fiction, technology, technoscience
“The Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, whose works include Return from the Stars, The Cyberiad, A Perfect Vacuum, and Solaris, has been hailed as a “literary Einstein” and a science-fiction Bach. The Art and Science of Stanislaw Lem provides an inter-disciplinary analysis of his influence on Western culture and the creative partnering of art and science in his fiction and futorology by American and European scholars who have defined Lem scholarship.
Rather than analyzing Lem solely as a science fiction writer, the contributors examine the larger themes in his work, such as social engineering and human violence, agency and consciousness, Freudianism and the creative process, evolution and the philosophy of the future, virtual reality and epistemological illusion, and science fiction and socio-cultural policy.
This unique collection also includes “Smart Robots,” a previously unpublished essay by Lem.”
Contributors include Peter Butko, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr, Katherine Hayles, Jerzy Jarzebski, Michael Kandel, Stanislaw Lem, Paisley Livingston, Krzysztof Loska, and Peter Swirski.
Publisher McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006
ISBN 0773575073, 9780773575073
208 pages
PDF (updated on 2014-12-29)
Comment (0)