Book Reviews The Persistence of Technology: Histories of Repair, Reuse and Disposal

Abstract

Technology holds complex temporalities and its uncompromising persistence is one of them. Its upkeep and “unmaking” (19) are however rarely included in its narratives, owing in part to a prevailing preoccupation with innovation and a structural disregard for the “afterlife” (14) of things. In two substantial opening chapters, written by editors Stefan Krebs, Assistant Professor in Contemporary History and Head of Public History at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (CDH) of the University of Luxembourg, and Heike Weber, Professor of History of Technology at the Technische Universit€ at Berlin, The Persistence of Technology: Histories of Repair, Reuse and Disposal builds an argument for a temporal perspective of technology, including a historicity of repair. Ten ensuing case studies of technologies that shaped the twentieth century substantiate the argument and illustrate how maintenance, repair, reuse, and disposal are central to technology’s Anneke Coppoolse is Assistant Professor of Visual Communication Design in the College of Fine Arts at Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea. annekecoppoolse@hongik.ac.kr © 2022 Anneke Coppoolse DOI: 10.1080/17547075.2022.2038974