America's Two Gadgets
Of Bombs and Polygraphs
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3552896 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ken Alder (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 98 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 124-137 |
| Publication date | 2007-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/512836 |
| OpenAlex | W2304197576 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 4 |
This essay pairs two prototypically American technological objects of the mid‐twentieth century: the atomic bomb and the lie detector. Although the former has been touted as the supreme achievement of modern technoscience, and the latter dismissed as a placebo device, the two “gadgets” actually performed in analogous fashion. Indeed, the essay suggests that these technologies are best understood not in terms of narrow functionality but in terms of their performance—akin to that of Frankenstein’s monster—in the domains of justice, popular culture, and geopolitics. Specifically, it argues that the mutually supportive roles played by the two objects underscore the ways in which the theater of deterrence sustained American sovereignty during the era of the Cold War
Aesthetics · Art · Cold war · Dehumanization · Economic Justice · Geopolitics · Law and economics · Literature · Media studies · Monster · Political science · Popular culture · Social science · Sociology · Sovereignty · Technoscience · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Law · Science Education and Perceptions
| Citations per year | 0.42 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2014 - 2019 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |