A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Engineering and social inequalities in modern world literature: of disembodied forces and provocative intrusions
While the material consequences of engineering projects figure prominently in modern world literature, individual engineers are hard to find. Despite the centrality of engineering knowledge and technologies in creating the very conditions of possibility for wide-ranging personal and collective dramas explored by literary artists, the task of imagining and depicting engineers' personal biographies, sociopolitical allegiances, emotional states, decision-making processes, or specific material actions has appealed to very few. Surveying the work of some of the most accomplished authors of the Caribbean, West Africa, South America, and South Asia, this article outlines dominant patterns in postwar representations of engineering as a disembodied, unreflective, almost inhuman force that has spurred or exacerbated social inequalities across the global south. It then examines more sympathetic, alternative countercurrents in the literary imagination that cast the engineer as a potential ally in more open, participatory forms of change across the same world regions. Through this juxtaposition, the article seeks to foster new reflections on optimal relationships between literary and engineering studies at a juncture marked by increasing interdisciplinary investigations and interrogations of globalization, development, and local and transnational inequalities.
Engineering and social inequalities in modern world literature: of disembodied forces and provocative intrusions
While the material consequences of engineering projects figure prominently in modern world literature, individual engineers are hard to find. Despite the centrality of engineering knowledge and technologies in creating the very conditions of possibility for wide-ranging personal and collective dramas explored by literary artists, the task of imagining and depicting engineers' personal biographies, sociopolitical allegiances, emotional states, decision-making processes, or specific material actions has appealed to very few. Surveying the work of some of the most accomplished authors of the Caribbean, West Africa, South America, and South Asia, this article outlines dominant patterns in postwar representations of engineering as a disembodied, unreflective, almost inhuman force that has spurred or exacerbated social inequalities across the global south. It then examines more sympathetic, alternative countercurrents in the literary imagination that cast the engineer as a potential ally in more open, participatory forms of change across the same world regions. Through this juxtaposition, the article seeks to foster new reflections on optimal relationships between literary and engineering studies at a juncture marked by increasing interdisciplinary investigations and interrogations of globalization, development, and local and transnational inequalities.
Engineering and social inequalities in modern world literature: of disembodied forces and provocative intrusions
Straker, James D. (author)
Engineering Studies ; 2 ; 61-83
2010-04-01
23 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Emerald Group Publishing | 1984
Toward a Disembodied Architectural Culture
| British Library Conference Proceedings | 1997
| Online Contents | 2006
Disembodied Historicity: Southern Song Imperial Street in Hangzhou
| British Library Online Contents | 2016
Provocative Multi-functional Furniture
British Library Online Contents | 2019