Historical Modern Images of Technology: A New Materialist Arts-Based Research Approach to Engineering Diversity

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: Enchanted Poetics and Images as Advocacy in Arts-Based Educational Research

Abstract

This research applies a new materialist and arts-based research methodology to historical images of technology and identities for a different view of diversity in engineering education. The Theory of the Image (Nail, 2019) argues that all matter, including images, have agency that resonate historically through time. Applying this theory to early modern images of technology in the U.S. shows shifting cultural patterns produced by disruptive technologies. These patterns can then be explored using the arts-based research method of collage. An emerging pattern discussed here is the historical confluence of the Industrial Revolution, the Morrill Acts, the emergence of professional engineering, and the funneling of women away from engineering and into the new field of home economics.

Author

• Katherine Robert, University of Denver