A social rhetoric surrounding household technologies, such as the dishwasher, is that these devices are “labor-saving.” Ruth Schwartz Cowan (1983) argued that this assumption of technology, especially technologies made for domestic work, is wrong. She instead posited that so-called labor-saving devices have actually increased work for women. Cowan traced household technologies in detail from industrialism,... Continue Reading →
I ordered The Practice of Everyday Life: Volume 2: Living and Cooking (1998) by Michel de Certeau, Luce Giard, and Pierre Mayol as a companion to de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life. This second volume seemed to be more aligned with my research interests and topic, as I read both of these books for... Continue Reading →
Jaron Lanier, in his manifesto titled You Are Not A Gadget (2010), makes the claim that at one time, he was sitting in the most interesting room in the world. He was helping to design a video game, and while I appreciate his experiences in Silicon Valley and his contributions to the wonderful web of... Continue Reading →
Part of my childhood was spent in a tiny town on a Navajo reservation, where we lived in a trailer. We were one of the lucky few of the residents to have running water. My sisters and I spent each night washing dishes by hand, a ritual we did not enjoy. So imagine my delight,... Continue Reading →
There's an interesting connection between liberation and technology. I am studying this idea in one of my classes this semester, and the attitude that technology can and will save us, or that it is somehow in charge, is called technological determinism. This idea is closely connected to society and culture, which is why the term... Continue Reading →
A few months ago, my good friend Kelcey posted on Facebook a frantic plea for anybody to loan her a copy of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995). The library did not have any available copies, the waiting list for one was long, and she needed... Continue Reading →
