Science, Technology, and Society Seminar: STS Circle at Harvard
Date and Time
Location
Which Goddess of Technology? Artisan Knowledge in Early Modern South Asia
Speaker
- Eric M. Gurevitch, Faculty Associate. Assistant Professor, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University.
Chair
- Sheila Jasanoff, Faculty Associate. Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies; Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy, Committee on Degrees in Environmental Science and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.
Contact
Henry Austin
henryaustin@hks.harvard.edu
Abstract
There are many gods and goddesses of technology, and their worship brings into focus different aspects of society, politics, and matter. This presentation opens by recalling recent invocations of technological myths before moving back in time to explore earlier ways sociotechnical relations have been brought into focus through the divine. It concentrates on Sanskrit texts written by and about coppersmiths, artisans, and architects in early modern Western India. These texts embed epistemological, ontological, and theological reflections within genealogical accounts of the origins of professional communities. Relating particular ways of manipulating matter to particular communities of practice, The presentation investigates how material properties gave rise to a unique poetics of craft spanning the literatures of metallurgy, alchemy, and architecture.
Bio
Eric Moses Gurevitch is assistant professor of the history of technology in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. His first monograph, under contract with the University of Chicago Press, is titled Everyday Sciences: Practical Knowledge and Knowledgeable Practice in South Asia. The book documents the rise of vernacular sciences in medieval South Asia and explores how people turned to writing to describe practices such as predicting the weather, assaying gold, and healing poisons. It will be published simultaneously in South Asia through Permanent Black Press. His second monograph-length project – from which he will be presenting today – will explore the literate and numerate practices of artisans and people from laboring communities. The project brings together questions of craft, technology, and caste to tell an intellectual history that extends beyond the history of intellectuals.