Talk: Christopher Henke "Repair, Maintenance and Infrastructure Studies" (Maintenance & Philosophy of Technology SIG) Thursday 10th august (1800-1915 UTC +1)

[ISHPSS]

 

From: Mark Young <young...@GMAIL.COM>

Dear all,

Hope this email finds everyone well. We’d like to announce the next session of the Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology SIG on Thursday 10th August (1800-1915 UTC+1). In this session, we’re very excited to welcome Christopher Henke who’ll be talking about the emergence of maintenance and repair studies in relation to studies of infrastructure from his latest book. If you'd like to receive a link for the talk, please send me an email at ma...@markthomasyoung.net

Best,

Mark

Repair, Maintenance and Infrastructure Studies: The Promise (and perils?) of an Emerging Field

Christopher Henke (Colgate University)

Thursday 10th August (1800-1915 UTC+1)

In this talk I discuss the often hidden but pervasive and enduring influence of infrastructures for shaping the social and material reality of modern life. Infrastructures such as power lines, roads, and food systems support our everyday activities, but they are also important sources of economic and symbolic capital for the power elite. These properties and consequences of infrastructures make them both hard to change (due to the investments and resources embedded in them) and, at the same time, essential sites for transformation (due to the climate crisis and pervasive inequalities built into infrastructural systems). I illustrate my argument with examples from my recent book, Repairing Infrastructures: The Maintenance of Materiality and Power (co-authored with Benjamin Sims; MIT Press 2020). 

(In order to avoid confusion regarding the timing of the talks - the following table clarifies when the talks begin in different locations)

Amsterdam 7:00pm

London 6:00pm

Toronto (New York) 1:00pm

San Francisco 10:00am