Winter 2006 - Syllabus and Bibliography:
STEAM ENGINES AND COMPUTERS: FROM INDUSTRIAL PROLETARIANS TO INFORMATION WORKERS
N.B.: ALWAYS SEE ONLINE SYLLABUS FOR ANY CHANGES or UPDATES: http://www.umich.edu/~twod/steam
See class homepage for Speakers, Class Tours, Assignments, and Misc. Changes- Residential College Social Science 461.001
- Sociology 495.005
- History 498.001
- STS Science, Technology and Society Minor Program
Meets: Winter 2006, Tues/Thurs, 10:00 - 11:30 in 35 Tyler Hall, RC, East Quad
Instructor: Tom O'Donnell
Syllabus: (Assignments are due in the class under which they are listed.)Part I - Introduction and Theoretical Framework
Nature of "technology": Does technology determine history and/or social relations? Positions: hard vs. soft, etc. Is technological "progress" inevitable, positive? Marxism and the concept of material-economic base and political-cultural-social superstructure; dialectics and the long-run primacy of base; the materialist conception of history.
Class 2, Tues., 10jan06:
-1- Introduction to [Smith, Marx, 1998], pp. ix-xv. [6 pp.]
-2- Merrit Roe Smith, Technological Determinism in American Culture, in [Smith, Marx, 1998], pp. 1-15. [16 pp.]
-3- Robert. Heilbroner, Do Machines Make History? in [Smith, Marx, 1998], pp. 53-65 [13 pp.].
-4- Robert Heilbroner, Technological Determinism Revisited, in [Smith, Marx, 1998], pp. 66-78. [13 pp.]
Total 48 pp.Class 3: Thurs., 12jan06
-5- K. Marx and F. Engles, Section I: "Bourgeois and Proletarians" in [Marx&Engels, 1847] (pp. 17-32) [16 pp.]
-6- Karl Marx, "The Materialist Conception of History" in [Bottomore, 1956] (pp. 51-67) [17 pp.]
-7- Karl Marx, "Society, social relations, and the economic structure," in [Bottomore, 1956] (pp. 88-101) [14 pp.]
Total: 47 pp.Class 4: Tues., 17jan06
-8- Bruce Bimber, Three Faces of Technological Determinism, in [Smith, Marx, 1998], pp. 79-100. [22 pp.]
-9- Leo Marx, The Idea of 'Technology' and Postmodern Pessimism," in [Smith, Marx, 1998], pp. 236-257. [22 pp.]
-10- John M. Staudenmaier, Rationality vs. Contingency in the History of Technology, in [Smith, Marx, 1998], pp. 259-273. [15 pp.]
Total: 59 pp.
Class 5: Thurs., 19jan06
-11- Leo Marx "Does Improved Technology Mean Progress?, in [Teich, 1993], pp. 3-12. (Originally: Technology Review, Jan, 1987, pp. 33-41, 71). [10 pp.]
-12- Herb Brody, Great Expectations: Why Technological Predictions go Awry, in [Teich, 1993], pp. 150-159. (Originally: Technology Review, 1991.) [10 pp.]
-13- Emannuel G. Mesthene, The Role of Technology in Society, in [Teich, 1993], pp. 71-88; or [Teich, 2003], pp. 47-58 [16 pp.]
-14- John McDermott, Technology: The Opiate of the Intellectuals, in [Teich, 1993], pp. 89-10; or [Teich, 2003], pp. 59-70. [19 pp.]
Total: 53 pp.Part II - Medieval Technology and Social-Class Structure in Europe:
Class 6: Tues., 24jan06
Agricultural and animal-powered innovations; water and wind energy; spread of mechanical arts; textile innovations; metal working; warfare; role of monasteries in technologies; demographic changes; end of slavery, nature of feudal classes and relations; and spread of handicraft production, emergence of towns/bergs, of the bourgeoisie and its mode of production within feudal society.
Note: [Gimpel, 1976] not in course pack. Purchase book.
-15- F & J. Geis, Chap. 1. "Nimrod's Tower, Noah's Ark," [F&JGies,94] (pp. 1-16) [15 pp.]
-16- Jean Gimpel, Preface vii, [Gimpel, 1976] [4 pp.]
-17- Jean Gimpel, Chap. 1. The Energy Resources of Europe and Their Development (p. 1) [28 pp.]
-18- Jean Gimpel, Chap. 2. The Agricultural Revolution (p.29) [29 pp.]
Total: 76 pp.
Class 7: Thurs., 26jan06
-19- Jean Gimpel, Chap. 3. Mining the Mineral Wealth of Europe (p. 59) [15 pp.]
-20- Jean Gimpel, Chap. 4. Environment and Pollution (p. 75) [17 pp.]
-21- Jean Gimpel, Chap. 5. Labor Conditions in Three Medieval Industries (p. 93) [20 pp.]
-22- Jean Gimpel, Chap. 6. Villard de Honnecourt: Architect and Engineer (p.114) [32 pp.]
Total: 85 pp.
Class 8: Tues., 31jan06
-23- Jean Gimpel, Chap. 7. The Mechanical Clock: The Key Machine (p. 147) [23 pp.]
-24- Jean Gimpel, Chap. 8. Reason, Mathematics, and Experimental Science (p. 171) [27 pp.]
Total: 50 pp.
Class 9: Thurs., 02feb06
-25- Jean Gimpel, Chap. 9. The End of an Era (p. 199) [37 pp.]
-26- Jean Gimpel, Epilogue (p. 237) [15 pp.]
-27- Carlo M. Cipolla, Chap. 6, "Technology", [Cipolla76] pp. 158-181. [23 pp.]
Total: 75 pp.
Class 10: Tues., 07feb06
-28- F & J. Geis" The Technology of the Commercial Revolution: 900-1200," [F&JGies,94] (pp. 105-165) [59 pp.]
-29- F & J. Geis "The High Middle Ages," (pp. 166-237) [70 pp.]
Total: 129 pp.Part III - The 1st Industrial Revolution - in W. Europe and N. America.
Emergence from period of Commercial Revolution and European world exploration, colonization; factory system supplants handicraft production, distinction between tools and machines, evolution of motive power, progression in stages of the socialization of production; telegraph and railways; ascendancy of industrial bourgeoisie and proletariat, decline of landed aristocracy and peasantry; first large metropolises (Manchester); bureaucracies and economic control functions; first unions and working-class parties; socialism and Marxism; cheap products expand world market and remake old colonial empires, 'Victorian holocausts' of cheap manufactured products.
Class 11: Thurs., 09feb06
- [Engels, 1845] Frederick Engels, "The Conditions of the Working Class in England", written September 1844 to March 1845. Published in Leipzig, 1845. Note: Will use Penguin Classics edition. Page numbers differ between this and online.
(Online at Marxists.org Internet Archive at: http://marxists.org/ and Marx-Engels Selected Works, chronological index at: http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/)
Note: [Engels, 1845] not in course pack. Purchase book.
-30- Dedication
-31- Preface
-32- Introduction
-33- The Industrial Proletariat
-34- The Great Towns
-- [Marcus, 1974] "Engles, Manchester, and the Working Class," by Steven Marcus, Vintage, New York, 1974. Suggested reference, on reserve, RC library
Class 12, Tues., 14feb06
- [Engels, 1845]
-35- The Luddites
-36- Competition
-37- Irish Immigration
Class 13 & 14 , Thurs.-Tues., 16-21feb06
- [Engels, 1845]
-38- Results
-39- Single Branches of Industry
-40- The remaining Branches of Industry
-41- Labour Movements
Spring Break No class Tues. & Thurs., 28feb06 & 02mar06
Class 15 (before break) & 16 (after break), Thurs., 23feb06 & Tues., 07mar06: (Option of moving to Standage now)
- [Engels, 1845]
-41- The Mining Proletariat
-42- The Agricultural Proletariat
-43- Final two chapters
Class 17: Thurs. 09mar06
-44- Tom Standage, "The Victorian Internet," Berkley Books, New York, 1998. [Standage,1998] Read first half of book.
Class 18: Tues., 14mar06
-45- Second half of book. [Standage, 1998]
Class 19: Thurs., 16mar06
- Karl Marx, "Capital" Volume I, Part IV, "Production of Relative Surplus Value," [Marx, 1865]
-- Chapter 15. "Machinery and Modern Industry"
-46- 1. The Development of Machinery,
-47- 2. The Value Transferred by Machinery to the Product and
-48- 3. The Proximate Effects of Machinery on the Workman.
Class 20: Tues., 21mar06
- [Marx, 1856]
-49- 4. The Factory
-50- 5. The Strife Between Workman and Machine
-51- 6. The Theory of Compensation as Regards the Workpeople Displaced by Machinery
-52- 7. Repulsion and Attraction of Workpeople by the Factory System. Crisis in the Cotton Trade
-53- 8. The revolution Effected in Manufacture, Handicrafts and Domestic Industry by Modern IndustryEND OF FIRST COURSE PACK
Part IV - The 2nd Industrial Revolution:
Automation &/or Control Revolution based on mechanical and electrical relays, solenoids, vacuum tubes, business machines in mass bureaucracy; Fordism, Taylorism and scientific management, mass production in monopoly capitalist industries; industrial unionism supplants craft unionism.
Class 21: Thurs., 23mar06
- Melvyn Dubofsky, Preface to Third Edition. [Dubofsky, 1998]
- Chapter One: Workers, Industry and Society 1865-1920, pp. 5-30. [Dubofsky, 1998]
Class 22: Tues., 28mar06
-[Foster, 1970] William Z. Foster, "American Trade Unionism," International, New York, 1970 (c.1947).
- Part 1, pp. 1-81:
- 1. Early Days 9
- 2. The Packinghouse Campaign 21
- 3. The Great Steel Strike 33
- 4. The Basis of American Syndicalism 50
- 5. The Trade Union Educational League 54
- 6. The Post-War Attack on Labor 57
- 7. Dual Unionism 62
- 8. Industrial Unionism 75Part V - The Information Revolution, Prerequisites
Class XX Supplemental readings:
Class 23A: Thurs., 30mar06
--Millman, "A Short History of Electronics," 1979.
--"The Automation Revolution," [Scientific American collection, 1948].
Part VI - The Information Revolution, Phase 1
Class 23B: Thurs., (STILL 30mar06)
--Beniger, "The Control Revolution," 1993. [Teich, 1993] (Original: Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 1986.)
Class 24 & 25: Tues.-Thurs., 4-6apr06
--Daniel Bell, "The Coming of Post-Industrial Society," Basic Books, New York, 1973. - The Axial Age of Technology. Forward: 1999 pp. ix-lxxxv. [Bell, 1973] Class 2 1:
Class 26: Tues., 11apr06
--Peter Drucker, "The Age of Social Transformation," Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1994. [Drucker,94]
Class 27: Thurs., 13apr06
--Burris, B.H., Computerization of the Workplace, Annual Review of Sociology}, 28:141-157, 1998. [Burris, 1998]
-- 'Technocratic Teamwork: Combatting gender differences and cultural marginalization in an engineering firm," Gerhard Daday and Beverly Burris, University of New Mexico, August 2000. Forthcoming in REMAKING WORK ORGANIZATIONS, Steven Vallas (ed.), JAI Press. (Online at class web site.) [Daday, Burrris, 2000]
Class 28: Thurs., 18apr06 - LAST CLASS
--Students present brief talks on their term research papers.
Not in Course Pack, on Reserve:
--[SciAm, 1996], Readings 0.0, 1.0 & 2.0 (see index at end of syllabus)
--[SciAm, 1996], Readings 1.1 & 1.2 (see index at end of syllabus)
Class 28: Tues., 19apr06
-- Paul Ceruzzi, The Unforseen Revolution: Computers and Expectations, 1935-1985, pp. 160-174, [Teich, 1993]. (Source: Imagining Tomorrow: History, Technology nd the American Future, edited by Joseph J. Corn (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986).
Not in Course Pack, on Reserve:
--[SciAm, 1996], Readings 3.0, 3.1 & 3.2 (see index at end of syllabus)
---- END OF CLASSES ---
Class 29: NO CLASS 29 THIS YEAR
--Shshana Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine, pp. 340-349, in [Teich, 1993]. (Source: In the Age of the Smart Machine, Basic Books, 1988.)
Class 30: NO CLASS #) THIS YEAR
Not in Course Pack, on Reserve:
--[SciAm, 1996], Readings 13.0, 14.0 & 14.1 (see index at end of syllabus)
--[SciAm, 1996], Readings 19.0 & 20.0 (see index at end of syllabus)
--[SciAm, 1996], Readings 21.0 & 22.0 (see index at end of syllabus)
--[SciAm, 1996], Readings 23.0 & 24.0 (see index at end of syllabus)Part VII - The Information Revolution, Phase 2
Readings not in Course Pack, on Reserve (various, mainly for individual writing projects/research)
Readings from [SciAm, 1996] on new technologies:
Not in Course Pack, on Reserve:
- 0.0 Introduction, John Remis, p. xi-xiii.
-Part I Informations Technologies. pp.
- 0.0 Introduction: The Uncertainty of Technological Innovation, John Remmii, p. xi
- 1.0 Microprocessors in 2020, David A. Patterson, pp. 1-8
- 2.0 Wireless Networks, George I. Zysman, pp. 9-14
- 3.0 Artificial Intelligence, Douglas B. Lenat, pp. 15-18
- 3.1 Commentary: Virtual Reality, Brenda Laurel, pp. 19-20
- 3.2 Commentary: Satellites for a Developing world, Russell Doggatty, pp. 21-24
--Part IV Machines, Materials and Manufacturing, pp. 83-112.
- 11.0 Self-Assembly Materials, Geo. M. Whitesides, pp. 83-88
- 12.0 Engineering Microscopic Machines, Kaigham J. Gabriel, pp. 89-94
- 13.0 Intelligent Materials, Craig A. ROgers, pp 95-104
- 14.0 High-Temperature Superconductors, Paul C. W. Chu, pp. 105-110
- 14.1 Commentary: Robotics in the 32the Centruy, Joseph F. Engelberger, pp. 111-114
--Part VI Living with New Technology Pp. 143-188.
- 19.0 Technology Infrastructure, Arati Probbaken, pp. 143-144
- 20.0 Designing the Future, Donald A Normar, pp. 145-146
- 21.0 Digital Literacy, Richard A. Lauham, pp. 147-148
- 22.0 The Information Economy, Hal R . Varian, pp. 149-150
- 23.0 The Emperor's New Workplace, Soshana Zuboff, pp. 151-152
- 24.0 What Technology Alone Cannot Do, Robert W. Lucky, pp. 153-156
- The Authors
- Bibliography
--List of Authors.
Bibliography:
- [Bell, 1973] Daniel Bell, "The Coming of Post-Industrial Society," Basic Books, New York, 1973.
- [Bottomore, 1956] "Karl Marx, Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy", Translated by T. B. Bottomore.
- [Burris, 1998] Burris, B. H., Computerization of the Workplace, Annual Review of Sociology}, 28:141-157, 1998.
- [Cipolla76] "Before the Industrial Revolution" European Society and Economy, 1000-1700," Carlo M. Cipolla, Norton, 1976, New York. (latest ed. is 1994)
- [Daday, Burrris, 2000] 'Technocratic Teamwork: Combating gender differences and cultural marginalization in an engineering firm," Gerhard Daday and Beverly Burris, University of New Mexico, August 2000. In Remaking Work Organizations, Steven Vallas (ed.), JAI Press.
- [Drucker,94] Peter Drucker, "The Age of Social Transformation," Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1994.
- [Dubofsky, 1998] Industrialism and the American Worker, 1865-1920., 3rd Edition, Melvyn Dubofsky, Harlan Davidson, Wheeling, Il., 1998.
- [Engels, 1845] Frederick Engels, "The Conditions of the Working Class in England", written September 1844 to March 1845. Published in Leipzig, 1845. Penguin Classics edition will be used in class.
Also available online at: Marxists.org Internet Archive at: http://marxists.org/ and Marx-Engels Selected Works, chronological index at: http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/- [Foster, 1970] William Z. Foster, "American Trade Unionism," International, New York, 1970 (c. 1947).
- [F&JGies,94] "Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages", Frances and Joseph Gies, HarperCollins, 1994, New York.
- [Gimpel, 1976] "Medieval Machines", Jean Gimpel, Penguin Books, New York, 1976 (First published in French as: "La Revolution Industrielle du Moyen Age")
- [Marcus, 1974] "Engles, Manchester, and the Working Class," by Steven Marcus, Vintage, New York, 1974.
- [Marx&Engels, 1847] K. Marx and F. Engels, "The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels", Bantam Books, 1992, New York.
- [Marx, 1856] "Capital," Karl Marx, Volume I, Part IV, "Production of Relative Surplus Value,"
- [Millman, 1979] "Micro Electronics," Historical Introduction
- [Palmer&Coulton,65] Palmer, R. R., and Coulton, Joel, "A History of the Modern World". New York, 1965. (latest ed. is 9th, 2002) Suggested reference.
- [Standage, 1998] Tom Standage, "The Victorian Internet," Berkley Books, New York, 1998.
- [SciAm, 1996] "Key Tehnologies for the 21st Century, Scientific American: A Special Issue," W.H. Freeman, New York, 1996.
- [SciAm, 1948] "The Automation Revolution," [Scientific American collection, 1948].
- [Smith, Marx, 1998] Ed. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx, "Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism," MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998.
- [Teich, 1993] Technology and the Future, Ed. Albert H. Teich, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1993.