Nature and Technology

Instructors:  Chloe Hawkey and Emmet von Stackelberg
Meeting time: Wednesday, 12:00-2:45 pm
Canvas site

In our modern world, technology—from cars and airplanes to supercomputers and the internet—seems to be at perpetual odds with the natural world, either unrelated to it or competing with it for loyalty and care. But what if these two features of our lives are not oppositional but in fact tightly intertwined with one another? This seminar traces the history of how nature has made technology and how technology has shaped nature. How have different historical figures—from whalers to plantation owners—understood nature as a resource, and how did they exploit those resources? How did people think about commodities as part of or separate from the natural world, and how did they use technology to mediate between nature and commodity? What fantasies of future utopias inspired workers, theorists, inventors, and engineers? As we strive to answer these questions, we will examine a different technology each week, emphasizing the people who created and used them and their connections to the natural world. Our readings will focus primarily on the U.S., but because both nature and technological ideas flow freely across political boundaries, we will necessarily follow them to the lithium mines of South America, the whaling grounds of the Pacific, and beyond.