Invention as a Social Drama
From an Ascending Machine to the Aerostatic Globe
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4021222 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mi Gyung Kim (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 853-887 |
| Publication date | 2013-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Technology and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0040-165X • E-ISSN: 1097-3729 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/tech.2013.0129 |
| OpenAlex | W2080174785 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 34 |
This paper characterizes the invention of the aerostatic machine in 1783 as a social drama to probe its social, cultural, and political function in Old Regime France. Even if the machine did not usher in modern industrialization and does not deserve a prominent place in economic history, the process of its "invention" highlights a rather usual set of factors involved in changing a traditional society organized by symbolic hierarchy. By delineating its provincial sites of production, its machine genealogy, the performative conjuncture of various sciences that facilitated its birth, and its metamorphosis in the Parisian public sphere, this paper makes visible the inventors' liminality in theatrical polity and their strategies of self-fashioning that stabilized a fragile paper machine as a majestic scientific spectacle that helped visualize the emergent nation
Aesthetics · Art · Drama · Globe · Ideology · Performative utterance · Political science · Politics · Polity · Sociology · Spectacle · Visual arts · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · History of Science and Medicine · Law
The Evolution of Technology
Description des expériences de la machine aérostatique de MM. de Montgolfier
By Means of Performance
The Bourgeoisie in 18th Century France, by Elinor G. Barber
The Utopian Thought of Restif de la Bretonne
Preserving the Monarchy
From the Royal to the Republican Body
Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth Century France
The most wonderful piece of machinery the world can boast of
The Perils of Petty Production
Global Commerce and the Question of Sovereignty in the Eighteenth-Century Provinces
The Body Politic
The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth
French Inventions of the Eighteenth Century
Jean-Baptiste Reveillon
Philippe d'Orleans, Frere Unique du Roi
Diderot's views on artists' and inventors' rights
Inventing needs
The Prehistory of Flight
Technology as a Public Culture in the Eighteenth Century
Memory and Practice
The Machine of the Duc D'Orléans and the New Politics
The Science-Technology Relationship as a Historiographic Problem
Invention and the State in 18th-Century France
Scientific Influences on Technology
Galileo the Emblem Maker
The Montgolfier Brothers and the Invention of Aviation, 1783-1784
John Holker, manufacturier et grand fonctionnaire en France au XVIII siecle
Work in France
The Académie Royale Des Sciences and the Pursuit of Utility
Papermaking in Eighteenth-Century France
Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors
Leviathan and the Air-Pump
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |