1. Teaching
The following undergraduate and postgraduate courses
will be given 2014-2016:
• Kon-0.4730 The Cultural History of Technology
• Kon-0.4740 Science, Technology & Media of Terrorism
• Kon-0.4750 Industrializing Revolutions
• Kon-0.4997 Ofärdsårens politiska tekniker: Teknik,
vetenskap och media, 1891-1906
• Kon-0.4998 Science, Technology, & Media in the
Origin & Globalization of Modern Terrorism, 1866-1914
Partners
The group has established relationships with Finnish
and international institutions:
• VTT Innovation Studies Group, Finland
• Brage Press Archive, Finland
• Technical Museum of Finland
• University of Helsinki, Finland
• University of Turku, Finland
• KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Umeå University, Sweden
• University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Roskilde University Center, Denmark
• University of Manchester, UK
• Brown University, USA
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Relevant publications
The following publications are related to the activities of
the group:
Brauer, R. & M. Fridlund, (2013) ”Historizing topic
models”, in: LV Nikiforova & NV Nikiforova, eds.,
Cultural Research in the Context of "Digital
Humanities”
Fridlund, M., (2012) ”Affording terrorism” in: M.Taylor
& P.M. Currie, eds., Terrorism and Affordance.
–––, (2011) “Bollards, buckets and bombs”, History
and technology
Fridlund, M. & G. Nelhans, (2011) ”Terrorens
ingeniørkunstt”, in M. Fenger-Grøndahl, ed., 11.
september:.
–––, (2011) , “Science and ‘The 9/11-Effect’”, Science
Progress.
–––, (2011) “Naturvetare i kriget mot terrorismen”,
Tvärsnitt.
Matala, S. (2012) “Idänkauppa oli varmaa, mutta
sitten se loppui”, Historiallinen aikakauslehti
Vähätalo, A. (2012) “Why academic heritage should
not be restored and exhibited?”, Tartu Ülikooli
ajaloo küsimusi.
The group was set up in 2013 with the appointment of
Mats Fridlund (PhD KTH 1999) as tenure-track
associate professor of the history of industralization at
Aalto School of Engineering. Previouslly,Fridlund has
held positions in history of science and technology,
security studies, STS and research policy studies at
universities in USA, UK, Denmark and Sweden.
Currently the group has four members and its activities
is funded through grants from the Swedish Research
Council (VR), Research Foundation of the Helsinki
University of Technology, Aalto School of Engineering &
the Letterstedtska foundation.
Research
The group’s overall empirical research focus is the
history of technopolitics and on how political and
ideological developments is interacting with
developments within technology, industry and
engineering. Connected to this there are five main focus
areas of research where there are currently several
ongoing research projects:
• Role of industrialization in the spread of terrorism
• 9/11-effect the security-industrial-academic complex
• Decline of East-West trade & Finnish shipbuilding
• Use of scale models in engineering education
• Digital topic modeling methods in historical research
The largest part of the research study the development
of the history of modern terrorism and political security
from the end of the 19th century until today and how it
has interacted with changes arising from the first three
industrial revolutions in engineering design,
manufacturing, and industrial research and the
globalization of transnational infrasystems.
It is the underlying assumption that the new terrorism
was to a large degree made possible through the
particular violent and clandestine 'affordances provided
by technoscientific innovations such as revolvers,
dynamite and anilin dyes arising in the Second
Industrial Revolution. The technological foundations of
terrorism are investigated through a study of media
technologies, expertise and ’civilian’ small arms and
explosives used in political assassination attempts, with
an emphasis on the role of hand-guns and dynamite
bombs.
Technopolitics, materialities & theories
of industrialization & innovation
Historical and contemporary studies of transnational science,
technology, media and innovation
History of Industrialization & Innovation Group (HIIVA)
Aalto University School of Engineering
Dept of Engineering Design & Production
PO Box 14100 (Visiting adress: Otakaari 4 )
FI-00076 Aalto, Finland
Head of Group: Professor Mats Fridlund
mats.fridlund@aalto.fi aalto-fi.academia.edu/MatsFridlund
/Users/matsfridlund/Dropbox/--db-PROFESSIONELLT/--PROFF-hiiva/
Core research and teaching concerns historical processes of transnational industrialization,
innovation and globalization and its impacts on culture and politics from the Industrial Revolution and
in this applying and developing theories and methodologies from Science and Technology Studies
(STS), materiality studies and digital humanities.
Another research area focus on the impact of 9/11 on
the emergence of a new innovation system in the
security-industrial-academic complex replacing the Cold
War nuclear-focused military-industrial-academic
complex. When the old nuclear threat waned in the
1990s the new fear of urban terrorism rose and reached
a widely global breakthrough. Following 9/11 urbanist
Mike Davis prophesised that the new urtban threat
would be exacerbated by military and security
companies of a new “fear economy” that would make
‘security’ into a “a full-fledged urban utility like water and
power .The mundane technology that stands out as
iconic of this new security threat is the bollard.
Significantly transforming urban forms and lifestyles, in
its various instantiations from Jersey barriers to heavy-
duty flowerpots it is the ubiquitous pervasive technology
protecting public and private institutions against car
bombs by aiming to “design out terrorism”.
In addition to this research, the work on technopolitics is
also being developed through research on transnational
knowledge flows and influences on Finnish and Nordic
industrialization during the industrial breakthrough and
the Cold War. Especially the role of East-West trade
on Finnish industrialization at the end of the Cold War
through the lens of the Finnish shipbuilding industry.
A conceptually focused research area is materiality
studies which is developed both empirically and
theoretically. Empirically, resaerch is done by studying
Aalto University’s collection of scientific and
technological artifact collections from Helsinki Institute
of Technology with an emphasis on the use of physical
models in engineering teaching, research and student
life. Theoretically, the group develops conceptual
perspectives on technologies and artifacts drawing on
affordance and affect theories and research on
technologies agency and society-shaping character – its
unintended ‘impact’. This research aim to decenter
individualist and collectivist histories of technologies
towards a methodological emphasis on the artifactual
agency of technological devices, such as revolvers and
bombs, providing what Andrew Pickering describes as a
‘posthumanist’ description, “in which the human actors
are still there but now inextricably entangled with the
nonhuman, no longer at center of action and calling the
shots.” (Pickering 1995)
A last emerging research area of the group is
methodological and focus on the impact of new text
mining methodologies – especially ‘topic modeling’ –
that is being under development within digital
humanities in general and in digital and spatial history in
particular. The aim is to develop this for use in a project
using digitized engineering journals for the Nordic
countries to reevaluate the imapct of knowledge flows
during the Nordic industrial breakthrough, 1860-1920.