Jon Agar

Jon Agar

@jonagar.bsky.social

historian of modern science and technology

8K followers618 following1K posts

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

A good day for teaching about maintenance But not so much for trying to make the point that maintenance is invisible, and that we only notice infrastructure when it breaks

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

So, yesterday, someone who I would trust as a cultural guide, someone who is serious, who would never hold a contrarian position just for the sake of it, told me they had seen DIGGER and it was as good as CITIZEN KANE. (I checked that they thought Kane was a good film). Can this be true?

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

At @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group today we discussed Henry-James Meiring's 'Rereading Malthus: Darwin and the historians', Isis (2026) 117(2), pp. 277–301. Suggested by Frank James. doi.org/10.1086/740961

doi.orgRereading Malthus: Darwin and the Historians | Isis: Vol 117, No 2AbstractThis essay revisits Charles Darwin’s reading of Thomas Robert Malthus’s Essay of the Principle of Population (6th ed., 1826), which furnished Darwin with the mechanism of natural selection. Wh...
Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

(Nice to be acknowledged twice, even if name misspelled)

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social

To kick things off we’ve got a major report on the dual support system. We argue that in fact it may be best understood as a tripartite system which also includes teaching income. Debates about research funding are ultimately debates on the purpose of HE www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications...

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

Things seen at the weekend that I am still thinking about: 1) Grant’s Croydon Car Park game (you shake the pill-cars into the car park spaces). Museum of Croydon

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Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

6) Dadd’s fairy paintings are well known. His Hogarth-like water-colour satire series on the passions less so. This one, “Patriotism”, is perhaps the most interesting. So much going on here. The text is obviously too much. The scale is absurd. The names of features fantastical. The old men argue

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

Things seen at the weekend that I am still thinking about: 1) Grant’s Croydon Car Park game (you shake the pill-cars into the car park spaces). Museum of Croydon

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Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

4) that Louis Wain’s cat drawings probably DID relate to his mental state, despite being told by the museum label not to Royal Bethlem Hospital Museum of the Mind

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

5) that the Richard Dadd exhibition at the Royal Academy is superb, although the small and extraordinarily intricate fairy paintings are hard to appreciate in a crowd. Best follow Dadd’s suggestion and bring optical help…

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

Things seen at the weekend that I am still thinking about: 1) Grant’s Croydon Car Park game (you shake the pill-cars into the car park spaces). Museum of Croydon

Jon Agar reposted

Josh Shepperd
@joshshepperd.bsky.social

The professor is Carolyn Marvin, one of the founders of media history research in the US, one of my subfields. Now leading the resistance against robot replacement of human labor. 

PhillyVoice.com@phillyvoice.com

A retired Penn professor has been blocking Uber Eats robots for months in protest. This week, she was arrested for disorderly conduct

bit.lyA retired Penn professor has been blocking Uber Eats robots for months. This week, she got arrested for itCarolyn Marvin, 78, said she is exercising her First Amendment right to protest — and will do it again.
Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

First @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group of the new term, and we discussed Duncan Bell’s 'Psychic socialism: telepathy, freedom, and individuality in interwar Britain', forthcoming in a book edited by @duncanbell.bsky.social and Eileen Hunt: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

papers.ssrn.comPsychic Socialism: Telepathy, Freedom, and Individuality in Interwar BritainDraft chapter - a version of this essay is forthcoming in Duncan Bell and Eileen Hunt (eds.), Political Theory and Speculative Literature. <div> <br> </div> <
Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

the Allegro is a nice touch terrible design, reverse tardis, always breaking. the warm nostalgia of family holidays

Cold War Steve@coldwarsteve.bsky.social

Shipping soon! Here’s a sneak peak at Jan, Feb, June & December! 👇👇 coldwarsteve.bigcartel.com/product/grea...

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

From my good friend and colleague @stsucl.bsky.social Brian Balmer: an STS textbook on science, technology, warfare and peace. Based on years of refining teaching on the topic, it’s really rather excellent Open access and free to download

UCL Press@uclpress.bsky.social

#OutNow An Introduction to Science, Technology, Warfare & Peace Ideal for students with no background knowledge of Science & Technology Studies, or as an intro for more advanced researchers in related fields More: https://uclpress.co.uk/book/an-introduction-to-science-technology-warfare-and-peace/

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

Slender Hare’s-ear (Bupleurum tenuissimum) near Coalhouse Fort, East Tilbury always slightly astonished this is an umbellifer, like a carrot or a hogweed tiny flowers hard to photograph for #wildflowerhour (finger for scale)

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

… and the charismatic beauty of Borrer’s Saltmarsh Grass (Puccinellia fasciculara). Coalhouse Fort, East Tilbury #wildflowerhour

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

Things seen in the Guildhall Art Gallery 1) Stained glass window for the Worshipful Company of Environmental Cleaners. Looks like it needs a wipe

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Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

Things seen in the Guildhall Art Gallery 1) Stained glass window for the Worshipful Company of Environmental Cleaners. Looks like it needs a wipe

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

2) (Detail of) Jan Griffier the Younger’s Thames during Great Frost of 1739 Much slipping over, on what looks like very rugged and grey Thames ice

Jon Agar reposted

Asif Siddiqi
@historyasif.bsky.social

It's October 4th -- the Sputnik satellite was flung into orbit 69 years ago today, beginning the age of space exploration. I dug into the Russian archives and got some documents on its creation. Check it out if you're interested.....

Asif Siddiqi@historyasif.bsky.social

Sputnik was 66 years ago today. I curated a set of about a dozen original Soviet archival sources (translated!) on the origins of the world's first satellite, hosted by The Wilson Center in Washington, DC: www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/ne... #histsci #histtech

wilsoncenter.orgNew Sources on SputnikDocuments added to DigitalArchive.org provide a look at the origins of Sputnik, the first Soviet satellite.
Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

To East Tilbury, to see the Queen of Spain. Then to the Thames, where the Longstone ro-ro cargo ship is taking containers to Zeebrugge

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

Walking back on the Thames path, passed the “beach” that is nearly entirely old rubbish heap crockery. It will make a fantastic Anthropocene deposit

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

National Care Service (double tick). Double lock (one tick). Reheated innovation nation stuff is poor. Nothing positive on universities. Otherwise big winners are the Lib Dems (electoral reform)! And, no, it is not a different kind of speech #burnham

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

Some plants in the marshy area by the River Wye, when it is just a stream at Hughenden, Bucks: Blue water-speedwell, Red goosefoot (I think!), Water forget-me-not #wildflowerhour (BSBI met here back in spring last year)

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

This is excellent. Nathan Ensmenger was one of the first historians to call attention to the hidden environmental consequences of computing, back when it was indeed obscure. Now (w/data centres) it is open and politically contested. But, he argues, we need to choose words and targets carefully..

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Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

Fodder vetch (V. villosa), I think, fields north of Romford, for #wildflowerhour #favouritefind was probably the St Dabeoc’s Heath from Galway last week, or the Yellow Vetch from Shoreham-by-Sea back in June

Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

This goes straight into my course this term, Thinking about Technology

History Workshop@historyworkshop.org.uk

The Radar Key grants access to public toilets and is a small but crucial part of the history of disabled people demanding rights and independence in modern Britain. Kirstie Stage explores the little-known history of this radical object.

historyworkshop.org.ukRadical Object: The Radar KeyThe Radar Key is a small but crucial part of the history of disabled people demanding rights and independence in modern Britain. Kirstie Stage explores the little-known history of this radical object.
Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

I am writing about UK environmental politics and science in the 1990s Not sure what to make of this passage in a speech by the Environment minister John Gummer in 1995, in which he remembers fantasising as a small boy about killing the man who killed the last Great Auk, and how it haunted him still

Jon Agar reposted

Margot Finn
@eicathomefinn.bsky.social

It's (almost) that time of year again: Inaugural Lectures season is nearly upon us. What better way to tip ones toes back in the water that Prof Simon Werrett's 'At Length did Cross an Albatross: Science and Seabirds in the Eighteenth Century'. Free and open to the public, 21 October. #Skystorians

ucl.ac.ukSTS Inaugural Lecture Series: Professor Simon Werrett“At Length did Cross an Albatross”: Science and Seabirds in the Eighteenth Century
Jon Agar
@jonagar.bsky.social

Good museum too, on the generations of Parsons (including turbine Charles), Rosses, Mary Ward etc I liked this drawing made using the big telescope of the Orion Nebula, c.1870s