The Winter 2021 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly, Technology, is now available. With original essays by Andrew Blum, Adrienne Mayor, Curtis White, and Simon Winchester; Voices in Time contributions by Al-Jazari, Babur, Ray Bradbury, Charlotte Brontë, Pearl S. Buck, George Dyson, Ted Kaczynski, Ada Lovelace, Jina Moore, Lewis Mumford, Sophocles, Rebecca West, and others; and art by Paul Klee, Leonardo da Vinci, and others.
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Cover | Thread twister based on a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, Luigi Boldetti, 1969
Program Notes | Among the Contributors
Map | Work in Progress
Preamble | Simon Winchester, Greeks Bearing Gifts
VOICES IN TIME
Invention
2020: Oxford | Daniel Susskind
1802: Bishopwearmouth | William Paley
1939: France | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
442 bc: Athens | Sophocles
1937: Serbia | Rebecca West
c. 1260: Paris | Roger Bacon
1922: Dearborn, MI | Henry Ford
1894: Washington, DC | George W. Murray
1982: St. Louis | Walter Ong
c. 213 bc: Syracuse | Plutarch
1945: New Mexico | Thomas F. Farrell
1843: London | Ada Lovelace
1971: Berkeley, CA | Michael Moritz
1823: London | Henry Law
1954: Bordeaux | Jacques Ellul
c. 60 bc: Italy | Lucretius
1908: Kitty Hawk, NC | Wilbur & Orville Wright
1637: Leiden | René Descartes
1934: New York City | Lewis Mumford
1206: Diyarbakir | Al-Jazari
1973: Nigeria | Yoruba Folktale
1841: Lowell, MA | Almira
1679: Hanover | Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
c. 395: Rome | Claudian
2020: Bellingham, WA | George Dyson
1962: Paris | Julio Cortázar
Adoption
2014: Manila | Adrian Chen
1911: Philadelphia | Frederick W. Taylor
c. 2500 bc: Giza | Herodotus
1881: New York City | Tom McNichol
1150: Ujjain | Bhaskara II
1907: Berlin | Georg Simmel
1433: Hesdin | Ledger of Philip III
1969: Toronto | Marshall McLuhan
1829: Craigenputtock | Thomas Carlyle
1916: Franconia, NH | Robert Frost
1787: Philadelphia | Tench Coxe
1520: Tenochtitlán | Bernal Díaz del Castillo
1974: Atlanta | Duane M. Rumbaugh, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Harold Warner, et al.
1878: Heidelberg | Mark Twain
1921: Norton, KS | Mrs. W.C. Lathrop
c. 1790: Korea | Chong Yagyong
c. 1930: Wadi al-Uyoun | Abdul Rahman Munif
c. 27 bc: Rome | Vitruvius
2018: Hangzhou | Xiaowei Wang
1972: Pine Ridge Reservation | Lame Deer
c. 1140: Paris | Hugh of Saint-Victor
1313: Luoyang | Wang Zhen
1984: Turin | Primo Levi
1878: Newark, NJ | Celluloid Manufacturing Co.
c. 1184 bc: Troy | Virgil
1995: Lincoln, MT | Ted Kaczynski
Obsolescence
2020: Khartoum | Jina Moore
c. 500 bc: Jin | Zhuangzi
1914: Columbia, MO | Thorstein Veblen
c. 150: Thessaly | Lucius Apuleius
c. 1915: Detroit | Louis-Ferdinand Céline
1812: Yorkshire | Charlotte Brontë
c. 12: Rome | Antipater of Thessalonica
2001: Outer Space | Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke
1954: Rapid City, SD | Pearl S. Buck
c. 960: Exeter | Exeter Book
1942: Dublin | Flann O’Brien
1708: Lagado | Jonathan Swift
2011: Adelaide | J.M. Coetzee
1840: New York City | Samuel F.B. Morse
The Future: Underground | E.M. Forster
1519: Bajaur | Babur
721: China | Book of Tang
c. 1947: Senegal | Ousmane Sembène
c. 1410: France | Christine de Pisan
1863: Christchurch | Samuel Butler
2020: San Francisco | GPT-3
2026: Allendale, CA | Ray Bradbury
FURTHER REMARKS
Essays
Fusion & Magic | Andrew Blum
Prometheus’ Toolbox | Adrienne Mayor
Living in a World Without Stars | Curtis White
Departments
Conversations | Banu Musa, Cowan, Google
Miscellany | Selfies, Flappy Bird, Hello Girls
Endnote: A Pig for All Seasons | Lewis H. Lapham
Glossary | Algorithm, Golem, Rube Goldberg
Sources | Readings & Art