New start?
I may be high on lack of sleep and caffiene. And that may be a good thing. I finally finished Thomas Hughes groundbreaking but slightly tedious Networks of Power yesterday. The two page epilogue and an article by Bernward Joerges have set me on fire. It’s not the writing so much as the realization that I need to embrace the large technical systems (LTS) literature in order to make my dissertation truly engaging to me. And that this can probably function as a unifying and marketable foundation for a good deal of my interests.
In essence, I am belatedly catching up to myself–or my advisor. I’ve dabbled in the LTS and ANT approaches for years, but suppressed my interest since my advisors didn’t seem to care much about them. Of course, my advisor(s) kept gently suggesting that I engage literature on technology, but I just didn’t want to get that deep into infrastructure. But now, suddenly, it seems like infrastructure, the socio-political aspects of infrastructure, could be truly exciting.
It does a couple of things for me. First, it taps my scientific/engineering inclinations. Second, it directly engages systems theory and network theory, which I have employed steadily and hadn’t quite gotten comfortable using with the dissertation. Third, it can be usefully and readily grafted onto my systems theory-esque approach to the circulation of capital (in all its forms). Rather, it actually provides a framework that will allow me to highlight my approach. And fourth, technology is intimately intertwined with the organization and aspirations of society, which will allow me to smoothly incorporate my utopian interests.
Basically, the LTS approach, which is admittedly broad, supplies a literature in which I can situate my broad interests in how social and psychological forms interact with physical forms. I’m momentarily delighted.
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