Netherlands Graduate School of Science, Technology, and Modern Culture - Summer School 2009
Soeterbeeck, Ravenstein, The Netherlands, 24-28 August 2009
Energy plays a central role in our technological culture. Our lives and the apparatuses we fill them with require an ever-increasing flow of energy. Networks providing electricity and fuels to every corner of society have become self-evident infrastructures on which society is built. Historically, the arrival of these networks also signified the arrival of modernity, in the form of steam powered trains, or electricity and electric light. During the heyday of technological optimism, energy use was even portrayed as an indicator of economic development. Energy has now become a metaphor of how we perceive each other, as people have ‘energetic’ personalities or artists give ‘electrifying’ performances. More recently, ‘energy-awareness’ has become a sign of responsible citizenship and energy efficiency a measure of environmental performance.
Networks of energy and our complex everyday economic, social and cultural practices are closely entwined. While the availability of energy enables a lifestyle of comfort and plenty, that lifestyle itself redefines and reconstitutes energy ‘needs’. Conceptions of modernity or of environmental awareness redirect how energy should be produced, distributed, used – or restricted. This makes the complex networks around energy and its meaning a particularly fruitful area in which to study the mutual constitution of technology and culture.
In this summer school, David E. Nye, a prominent historian of technology will guide us through the complex connections between energy and culture, from steam and water at the end of the nineteenth century, to the atomic bomb and the Apollo mission. This will enable us to raise questions about our present energy use and what it means to make these sustainable. Nye will demonstrate some of the key conceptual innovations for which he has become renowned in the cultural history of technology, such as the ‘technological sublime’. Our queries will culminate with an investigation of what happens when the seemingly self-evident omnipresence of energy is disrupted: blackouts.
Several scholars working in the Netherlands will accompany us on this intellectual journey, with lectures on specific aspects of technological culture and the place of energy in it. We will explore how gender issues are woven through this network, as well as how political and environmental visions shape the future of energy technology. In addition to lectures, participants will undertake activities aimed to develop practical research skills.
Confirmed list of guest lecturers: Ruth Oldenziel, Vincent Lagendijk
Activities for skills training will include: visual analysis, organising research and research material, writing book reviews. The programme will be finalised shortly after the registration ends, to accommodate presentations by participants.
This event is specifically intended for researchers working on a PhD Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies (STIS), history of technology, or related fields. Priority is given to members of the Netherlands Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture in the registration for this workshop.
The preparation work for this even is estimated at about 80 hours of study. Completion of this Summer School is granted with 4ECTS.
The programme and reader will be sent to registered participants about a month prior to the start of this summer school. Further information can be obtained from Marjatta Kemppainen (u.m.kemppainen@utwente.nl) or Willem Halffman (w.halffman@utwente.nl ).
To reserve your place, please complete this online registration form by 30 April 2009
Costs
for WTMC members:
-meals 10 EUR /day
Costs for
EASST members and everyone else:
-fee EUR 555 (EASST members), EUR 645 for everyone else.
-accommodation EUR 50 (incl. breakfast)/night
-meals: approx. EUR 35 for lunch and diner/day