Mikael Hard
Biographic Data
| ID | 546709 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mikael Hard |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mikael |
| FAMILY NAME | Hard |
| SIGNATURE | HARD M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Technische Universität Darmstadt |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2466-1092 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 46 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Accessing Electricity in East Africa: Dar es Salaam Dwellers Pursue Power
In colonial Dar es Salaam, electricity was meant to signal social status—and to differentiate high-income and low-income neighborhoods. Only wealthy colonizers and merchants had full access to electric power. Whereas the majority of people in European cities were provided electricity in their homes, most people deemed “African” in Dar es Salaam were denied access to the grid. Despite the electricity providers’ purported role as “public utilities,…
Microhistories of Technology: Making the World
This open access book focuses on how people around the world challenged the production techniques and products brought by globalization
Introduction: The History of East Africa’s Critical Infrastructure
Sciendo provides publishing services and solutions to academic and professional organizations and individual authors. We publish journals, books, conference proceedings and a variety of other publications
The historical ironies of roads
Trading zones in a colony: Transcultural techniques at missionary stations in the Dutch East Indies, 1860 – 1940
Global histories of technology tend to tell one-sided stories of transfer and exploitation, and they usually analyze the activities of large corporations, nation states or the military. By focusing on missionary societies in the colonial era, this article tells a different story. On the basis of primary sources from German missionaries in the Dutch East Indies, it shows how the application of various techniques at missionary stations was the outc…
Maintaining the local Empire: The Public Works Department in Dar es Salaam, 1920–60
Historical studies of infrastructures in colonial settings tend to focus on planning, design and construction. The article modifies this bias by highlighting the repair and maintenance of infrastructures. Investigating the Public Works Department in British Tanganyika, the authors illustrate its importance for keeping streets and roads clear, preventing sewage pipes from flooding and keeping electricity lines working. At the same time, the author…
Inventing traditions: Interests, parables and nostalgia in the history of nuclear energy
From the late 1960s on, light-water designs dominated the market for nuclear reactors in most Western countries. Up to that point in time, many national governments, scientists and industrialists had favoured the rival concepts of heavy-water and graphite-moderated plants. The article focuses on Sweden and West Germany, where central actors only reluctantly gave up their support for domestically developed heavy-water solutions. Studying new archi…
Common Cause: Public Health and Bacteriology in Germany, 1870–1895
The concept of appropriation has been applied in various contexts to investigate how different groups in society approach new scientific facts and technical artifacts in an active and creative manner. In this article we introduce the concept of “mutual appropriation” to describe the circulation of knowledge between scientific communities, in this case public health doctors and bacteriologists. In much the same way as Bruno Latour has shown for th…
The Victorian Eye and its blind spot: Toward a cultural assessment of technology
Coping with Modernity: European Ways of Housing in the American Century
The Good Apartment: The Social (Democratic) Construction of Swedish Homes
In Swedish history, the decades of social democratic rule (1932–76) are a subject of controversial debate. Despite impressive quantitative results in the area of housing, the social democratic policy has been interpreted in terms like “the oppression of benevolence.” The author objects to such a one-sided view of this policy. He acknowledges that there developed in Sweden a fairly unique kind of “consumption regime”—not least in the area of build…
Networking Europe: Transnational Infrastructures and the Shaping of Europe, 1850–2000 (review)
Artefakter: Industrin, vetenskapen och de tekniska nätverken (review)
Reviewed by: Artefakter: Industrin, vetenskapen och de tekniska nätverken Mikael Hård (bio) Artefakter: Industrin, vetenskapen och de tekniska nätverken. Edited by Sven Widmalm with Hjalmar Fors. Hedemora, Sweden: Gidlunds förlag, 2004. Pp. 395. SEK 178. In the organization of research, the humanities and the social sciences have become increasingly similar to the natural and engineering sciences. European research councils tend to fund "big-scie…
Cultural Politics in Action: Developing User Scripts in Relation to the Electric Vehicle
This article addresses two interrelated questions: Why is it often difficult to create better environmental conditions in the world using traditional political processes and new technological fixes? May science and technology studies analyses of user strategies and micropolitics contribute to societies' treatment of these difficulties? Focusing on the problems that the electric car has confronted in establishing itself as a viable alternative to …
Technoscientific Angst: Ethics and Responsibility. Raphael Sassower
Der Optimismus der Ingenieure: Triumph der Technik in der Krise der Moderne um 1900
"Fin de siècle" is a well-known term in intellectual history. Originally the title of an 1888 play by F. de Jouvenot and H. Micard, it has become shorthand for the feeling of pessimism and resignation that allegedly afflicted urban Europeans at the end of the nineteenth century. Although not plagued by anything like Y2K problems, people in cities such as Paris, Berlin, and Vienna are depicted as sensing that steady improvement had reached a peak …
Vetenskap och karriar: Svenska fysiker som lektorer, akademiker och industriforskare under 1900-talets forsta halft
Reviewed by: Vetenskap och karriär: Svenska fysiker som lektorer, akademiker och industriforskare under 1900-talets första hälft * Mikael Hård (bio) Vetenskap och karriär: Svenska fysiker som lektorer, akademiker och industriforskare under 1900-talets första hälft. By Thomas Kaiserfeld. Lund: Arkiv förlag, 1997. Pp. 304; illustrations, figures, notes, index. SKr 288. Thomas Kaiserfeld is known to the readers of Technology and Culture for an artic…
The Grammar of Technology: German and French Diesel Engineering, 1920-1940
The Grammar of Technology: German and French Diesel Engineering, 1920–1940 Mikael Hård (bio) and Andreas Knie (bio) At a meeting of the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI, German Engineering Society) in 1925 Imanuel Lauster, an honorary doctor of engineering, expressed his "deep satisfaction" with the latest successful developments in diesel engineering. As a board member of the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg (M.A.N.), he was pleased to note tha…
Teknologiske forandringer i dansk industri 1870-1896. Vol. 4, Dansk industri efter 1870
Alternative cars: The contrasting stories of steam and diesel automotive engines
The Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge, and Presuppositions
The Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge, and Presuppositions by Stephen Turner
652 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE The Social Theory ofPractices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge, and Presupposi tions. By Stephen Turner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Pp. x+145; notes, index. $39.95 (cloth); $14.95 (paper). Stephen Turner has written a dense and well argued book. It is a critical philosopher’s deconstruction of a whole tradition—perhaps the most central one—within the social sciences and humanities: the traditio…
Machines are Frozen Spirit: The Scientification of Refrigeration and Brewing in the 19th Century: A Weberian Interpretation
Machines Are Frozen Spirit: The Scientification of Refrigeration and Brewing in the 19th Century-A Weberian Interpretation
Technology as Practice: Local and Global Closure Processes in Diesel-Engine Design
This paper tries to contribute to the debates about the nature of technical closure and the character of technical work. The paper focuses on the relationship between world-wide and geographically-limited closure processes and the practical aspects of design. It is based on an analysis of the development of the diesel engine during the 1920s and 1930s. It shows that global closure was reached in diesel engineering on the levels of basic outline, …
Technology as Practice: Local and Global Closure Processes in Diesel-Engine Design
This paper tries to contribute to the debates about the nature of technical closure and the character of technical work. The paper focuses on the relationship between world-wide and geographically-limited closure processes and the practical aspects of design. It is based on an analysis of the development of the diesel engine during the 1920s and 1930s. It shows that global closure was reached in diesel engineering on the levels of basic outline, …
Beyond Harmony and Consensus: A Social Conflict Approach to Technology
This article presents a sociological perspective that suggests that technology should be seen as a means for groups to retain or rearrange social relations. Claiming, first, that the sociotechnical systems approach in technology-and-society studies often tend to bring out harmony and cooperation as an ideal and, second, that central social construc tivists tend to interpret closure and stabilization processes in terms of consensus, this article, …
Cultural Politics in Action: Developing User Scripts in Relation to the Electric Vehicle
This article addresses two interrelated questions: Why is it often difficult to create better environmental conditions in the world using traditional political processes and new technological fixes? May science and technology studies analyses of user strategies and micropolitics contribute to societies' treatment of these difficulties? Focusing on the problems that the electric car has confronted in establishing itself as a viable alternative to …
Maintaining the local Empire: The Public Works Department in Dar es Salaam, 1920–60
Historical studies of infrastructures in colonial settings tend to focus on planning, design and construction. The article modifies this bias by highlighting the repair and maintenance of infrastructures. Investigating the Public Works Department in British Tanganyika, the authors illustrate its importance for keeping streets and roads clear, preventing sewage pipes from flooding and keeping electricity lines working. At the same time, the author…
Introduction: The History of East Africa’s Critical Infrastructure
Sciendo provides publishing services and solutions to academic and professional organizations and individual authors. We publish journals, books, conference proceedings and a variety of other publications
Trading zones in a colony: Transcultural techniques at missionary stations in the Dutch East Indies, 1860 – 1940
Global histories of technology tend to tell one-sided stories of transfer and exploitation, and they usually analyze the activities of large corporations, nation states or the military. By focusing on missionary societies in the colonial era, this article tells a different story. On the basis of primary sources from German missionaries in the Dutch East Indies, it shows how the application of various techniques at missionary stations was the outc…
Microhistories of Technology: Making the World
This open access book focuses on how people around the world challenged the production techniques and products brought by globalization
The Good Apartment: The Social (Democratic) Construction of Swedish Homes
In Swedish history, the decades of social democratic rule (1932–76) are a subject of controversial debate. Despite impressive quantitative results in the area of housing, the social democratic policy has been interpreted in terms like “the oppression of benevolence.” The author objects to such a one-sided view of this policy. He acknowledges that there developed in Sweden a fairly unique kind of “consumption regime”—not least in the area of build…
Alternative cars: The contrasting stories of steam and diesel automotive engines
The Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge, and Presuppositions
Machines are Frozen Spirit: The Scientification of Refrigeration and Brewing in the 19th Century: A Weberian Interpretation
Beyond Harmony and Consensus: A Social Conflict Approach to Technology
This article presents a sociological perspective that suggests that technology should be seen as a means for groups to retain or rearrange social relations. Claiming, first, that the sociotechnical systems approach in technology-and-society studies often tend to bring out harmony and cooperation as an ideal and, second, that central social construc tivists tend to interpret closure and stabilization processes in terms of consensus, this article, …
Technology Transfer and Scandinavian Industrialisation
Social and cultural factors in technology transfer, Svante Lindqvist how industrial technology first came Norway, Trine Parmer British influence on developments in the Swedish foundry industry, Martin Fritz industrial espionage and the transfer of technology early Norwegian glass industry, Rolv Petter Amdam borrowing and adaptation of British technology by the Swedish iron industry in the early 19th century, Rolf Adamson artisan travel and techno…
Technology as Practice: Local and Global Closure Processes in Diesel-Engine Design
This paper tries to contribute to the debates about the nature of technical closure and the character of technical work. The paper focuses on the relationship between world-wide and geographically-limited closure processes and the practical aspects of design. It is based on an analysis of the development of the diesel engine during the 1920s and 1930s. It shows that global closure was reached in diesel engineering on the levels of basic outline, …
District Heating Comes to Town: The Social Shaping of an Energy System by Jane Summerton
TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE Book Reviews 415 footnotes); a select bibliography; and some discussion of how Russians greeted and experienced applications of electric power (cf. Wolfgang Schivelbush’s Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century [Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988]), Coopersmith’s book does tell an important story. If there are those who still doubt that technology is not everywhere the same or that “socialism…
District Heating Comes to Town: The Social Shaping of an Energy System
This thesis deals with the introduction of district heating in an ordinary Swedish town: Mjolby. The process was initiated in 1974 and the decision to build was taken in 1979. In the following ye
Machines are Frozen Spirit: The Scientification of Refrigeration and Brewing in the 19th Century: A Weberian Interpretation
Machines Are Frozen Spirit: The Scientification of Refrigeration and Brewing in the 19th Century-A Weberian Interpretation
The Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge, and Presuppositions
The Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge, and Presuppositions by Stephen Turner
652 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE The Social Theory ofPractices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge, and Presupposi tions. By Stephen Turner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Pp. x+145; notes, index. $39.95 (cloth); $14.95 (paper). Stephen Turner has written a dense and well argued book. It is a critical philosopher’s deconstruction of a whole tradition—perhaps the most central one—within the social sciences and humanities: the traditio…
Alternative cars: The contrasting stories of steam and diesel automotive engines
Teknologiske forandringer i dansk industri 1870-1896. Vol. 4, Dansk industri efter 1870
Vetenskap och karriar: Svenska fysiker som lektorer, akademiker och industriforskare under 1900-talets forsta halft
Reviewed by: Vetenskap och karriär: Svenska fysiker som lektorer, akademiker och industriforskare under 1900-talets första hälft * Mikael Hård (bio) Vetenskap och karriär: Svenska fysiker som lektorer, akademiker och industriforskare under 1900-talets första hälft. By Thomas Kaiserfeld. Lund: Arkiv förlag, 1997. Pp. 304; illustrations, figures, notes, index. SKr 288. Thomas Kaiserfeld is known to the readers of Technology and Culture for an artic…
The Grammar of Technology: German and French Diesel Engineering, 1920-1940
The Grammar of Technology: German and French Diesel Engineering, 1920–1940 Mikael Hård (bio) and Andreas Knie (bio) At a meeting of the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI, German Engineering Society) in 1925 Imanuel Lauster, an honorary doctor of engineering, expressed his "deep satisfaction" with the latest successful developments in diesel engineering. As a board member of the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg (M.A.N.), he was pleased to note tha…
Der Optimismus der Ingenieure: Triumph der Technik in der Krise der Moderne um 1900
"Fin de siècle" is a well-known term in intellectual history. Originally the title of an 1888 play by F. de Jouvenot and H. Micard, it has become shorthand for the feeling of pessimism and resignation that allegedly afflicted urban Europeans at the end of the nineteenth century. Although not plagued by anything like Y2K problems, people in cities such as Paris, Berlin, and Vienna are depicted as sensing that steady improvement had reached a peak …
Technoscientific Angst: Ethics and Responsibility. Raphael Sassower
Cultural Politics in Action: Developing User Scripts in Relation to the Electric Vehicle
This article addresses two interrelated questions: Why is it often difficult to create better environmental conditions in the world using traditional political processes and new technological fixes? May science and technology studies analyses of user strategies and micropolitics contribute to societies' treatment of these difficulties? Focusing on the problems that the electric car has confronted in establishing itself as a viable alternative to …
Artefakter: Industrin, vetenskapen och de tekniska nätverken (review)
Reviewed by: Artefakter: Industrin, vetenskapen och de tekniska nätverken Mikael Hård (bio) Artefakter: Industrin, vetenskapen och de tekniska nätverken. Edited by Sven Widmalm with Hjalmar Fors. Hedemora, Sweden: Gidlunds förlag, 2004. Pp. 395. SEK 178. In the organization of research, the humanities and the social sciences have become increasingly similar to the natural and engineering sciences. European research councils tend to fund "big-scie…
Networking Europe: Transnational Infrastructures and the Shaping of Europe, 1850–2000 (review)
The Victorian Eye and its blind spot: Toward a cultural assessment of technology
Coping with Modernity: European Ways of Housing in the American Century
The Good Apartment: The Social (Democratic) Construction of Swedish Homes
In Swedish history, the decades of social democratic rule (1932–76) are a subject of controversial debate. Despite impressive quantitative results in the area of housing, the social democratic policy has been interpreted in terms like “the oppression of benevolence.” The author objects to such a one-sided view of this policy. He acknowledges that there developed in Sweden a fairly unique kind of “consumption regime”—not least in the area of build…
Common Cause: Public Health and Bacteriology in Germany, 1870–1895
The concept of appropriation has been applied in various contexts to investigate how different groups in society approach new scientific facts and technical artifacts in an active and creative manner. In this article we introduce the concept of “mutual appropriation” to describe the circulation of knowledge between scientific communities, in this case public health doctors and bacteriologists. In much the same way as Bruno Latour has shown for th…
Inventing traditions: Interests, parables and nostalgia in the history of nuclear energy
From the late 1960s on, light-water designs dominated the market for nuclear reactors in most Western countries. Up to that point in time, many national governments, scientists and industrialists had favoured the rival concepts of heavy-water and graphite-moderated plants. The article focuses on Sweden and West Germany, where central actors only reluctantly gave up their support for domestically developed heavy-water solutions. Studying new archi…
Maintaining the local Empire: The Public Works Department in Dar es Salaam, 1920–60
Historical studies of infrastructures in colonial settings tend to focus on planning, design and construction. The article modifies this bias by highlighting the repair and maintenance of infrastructures. Investigating the Public Works Department in British Tanganyika, the authors illustrate its importance for keeping streets and roads clear, preventing sewage pipes from flooding and keeping electricity lines working. At the same time, the author…
The historical ironies of roads
Political science (19 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Law (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Engineering (9 works) · History (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories (5 works)