Last week I was tagged in a lovely, thought-provoking note by Ruth Gaskovski at School of the Unconformed, who has compiled a reading list on the Machine.
Ruth asks: is there anything her readers would suggest for the list?
Well! This June, for the third consecutive year, I’ll be part of the faculty for “The Machine Has No Tradition”. It’s a summer seminar in Cambridge, MA on the philosophy of technology, courtesy of Harvard’s wonderful Abigail Adams Institute.
The seminar runs fro June 16 to June 22. Applications are open to current undergraduate or graduate students, recent graduates, and young professionals working in relevant areas.
If that’s you, please apply!
And even if it’s not, in response to Ruth’s request here are selected readings from The Machine Has No Tradition, to add to her list. (There are others but the full recipe is as closely guarded as that of Worcestershire sauce, though with fewer anchovies)
Do you have other suggestions for readings on the philosophy, history, or demonology of the Machine? Please share in the comments.
Selected readings from The Machine Has No Tradition syllabus
Karl Marx, Das Kapital ch.15 “Machinery and Large-Scale Industry”
Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political
Carl Schmitt, The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations
Ivan Illich, Gender
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, ch. 3, 4
Erika Bachiochi The Rights of Women: Reclaiming A Lost Legacy ch.5
Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media ch. 1-3
Neil Postman, “Typographic America” in Amusing Ourselves to Death
Alasdair Macintyre, After Virtue
James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution
Paul Kingsnorth’s substack series (Abbey of Misrule) on the Machine
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton, That Hideous Strength and The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis, and anything by Wendell Berry.