History of Technology
Objectives
This course aims at providing students with a core of concepts which allow them to develop their own scientific and technical culture. Bearing these questions in mind we selected a set of significant moments (from the technological perspetive) in the European history which unveil the relationship between technology and society. Machines and technical systems are used as meta-object that design and are designed by society as a whole.
General characterization
Code
9924
Credits
6.0
Responsible teacher
Maria Luísa de Castro Coelho de Oliveira e Sousa
Hours
Weekly - 3
Total - Available soon
Teaching language
Português
Prerequisites
Available soon
Bibliography
Cardwell, D., The Fontana History of Technology, Londres, Fontana Press, 1994
Cowan, R., More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave, Basic Books, 1985
Horn, J. and Rosenband, L. N.;Roe Smith, M. (eds.), Reconceptualizing the Industrial Revolution, Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 2010
Kohlrausch, M. and Trischler, H., Building Europe on Expertise: Innovators, Organizers, Networkers, Palgrave, 2014
Misa, T., From Leonardo to the Internet, Technology and Culture from the Renaissance to the Present, Baltimore, JHUP, 2011
Nye, D., American Technological Sublime, Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 1996
Reynolds, T.S., Cutcliffe, S.H. (eds.), Technology and the West: A Historical Anthology from Technology and Culture, Chicago, The UCP, 1997.
Oldenziel, R. and Hård, M., Consumers, Thinkerers, Rebels: the People who Shaped Europe, Palgrave, 2014.
Teaching method
Available soon
Evaluation method
Available soon
Subject matter
Technology in contemporary society
- Technology as the metric of progress.
- Technology and society: from technological determinism to the concept of technological momentum.
Topics on History of Technology
- Operational technology: preclassical and classical civilizations.
- A new perspetive of the technical systems: machines and verticality in Medieval Europe
- Renaissance: understanding nature in order to control it.
- The geometrical method of perspetive and the diffusion of technical knowledge.
- The age of mechanisms: technical development in the 17th century.
- The age of industry.
- The emergence and the consolidation of the industrial culture
- The triumph of technology. Technical systems and research in the 20th and 21st century.
Technology, politics and ethics.
Programs
Programs where the course is taught: