KIN 249: Lecture 7.3

Lecture Notes

In this last section of today's lecture, I want to focus on one more aspect of the bicycle: it's role as a modern technology. Technologies can be defined as the application of knowledge to a task or problem. I bet you didn't guess that definition! That's because technologies are not always physical things . . . They can be ideas or structural changes, or stories so long as they are performing some work for us. We can also ask many questions about a technology: is it a boon or bane (good for society or bad for society); does it represent progress? For whom? How are technologies cultural products? In other words, why do they emerge when they do? How are they linked to ideology? Finally, what is the history of a given artifact or technology?