|
|
| Program > Science, Litterature and Popularization |
| Programme > La science dans la littérature et la vulgarisation |
| Jean-Louis
Trudel
(Université du Québec à Montréal) Verging on the vernacular: Technological dreams in popular science and technology magazines of the 19th century |
|
Popular science and technology magazines occupy an
uneasy borderland between the sphere of professional practices and
discourses, and the sphere of vernacular culture. Katherine Pandora
(2001) has identified vernacular culture as that of the everyday forms
of communication and activity that mark the public discourse. It is an
"intellectual commons" where social and theoretical
commentary can circulate without regard for scientific propriety.
Unauthorized by nature, the vernacular sphere is open to speculations
at odds with the norms of academic science or professional technology.
Often unstructured and ephemeral, the vernacular discourse can
nevertheless shape public opinion and communicate beliefs through the
use of strong images and narratives. The clearest overlap between the
subject matter of popular science and technology magazines and the
topics of interest to the broader culture arguably results from the
presentation of technological dreams by such publications. Though
didactic reportage may cover items with more immediate impact, such
dreams include collective projects with the allure of unbounded
promise. While today's possibilities still manage to mine the
"progress narrative", popular science and technology
magazines first articulated this narrative in the nineteenth century.
Therefore, it is the presence and framing of such technological dreams
in such magazines as Cosmos, La Nature, and Popular
Science Monthly before 1900 that will be characterized here, as
well as their support of and reliance on the progress narrative.
Centre
interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie
|
|
|
