Adam Lucas

MScSoc 1994, MA(Hons) HPS 1997, PhD HPS [UNSW] 2004

Location: 19:1076
E-mail alucas@uow.edu.au
Phone 02 4221 4659

Adam Lucas is a lecturer in the Science and Technology Studies Program in the School of English Literatures and Philosophy. He joined the University of Wollongong in March 2008 after working for more than five years as a policy analyst in the NSW Government.

Adam’s current research focuses on energy policy responses to anthropogenic climate change and the peaking of world oil, coal and gas production. He is particularly interested in identifying drivers for a rapid transition to ecological sustainability.  This is a continuation of his research from the 1990s in the sociology of science and technology, and the politics of technological development.

Adam continues to conduct research on the history of premodern and early modern science and technology, a field in which he has gained international recognition, primarily through his work on water- and wind-power in the Middle Ages. He recently took over Brill’s ‘Technology and Change in History’ series as co-editor with Steven A. Walton (Pennsylvania State University).).

Current Research

Due to population growth, climate change and a lack of infrastructure planning and investment over the last 30-40 years, Australia is at a stage where it is required to make major decisions about the kind of society it wishes to become in the 21st century. However, powerful interests in the fossil fuel, mining and transport sectors continue to resist efforts to move the country in a more ecologically sustainable direction.

Because one of the major obstacles to policy reform in Australia has been the Australian coal industry, Adam continues to conduct research on the economics of this industry and its contribution to current and future greenhouse gas emissions and electricity capacity throughout Australia. Over the last couple of years, he has given several talks on this topic in various public fora in Sydney and Wollongong, as well as media interviews for ABC Local Radio (Wollongong), 3CR FM (Melbourne), and FBI FM (Sydney).

Adam’s research into the political economy of the nuclear industry and the likely prospects for a ‘nuclear renaissance’ was broadcast on ABC Radio National’s ‘Ockham’s Razor’ on 30 May 2010:).

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2010/2910830.htm

A fully referenced version of this script was published in Australian Options, Number 62, Spring 2010, and is available for download here:

http://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/257

Adam’s current research is concerned with developing an understanding of how Australia can make a rapid transition from a primarily fossil-fuel dependent society to one relying solely on renewable energy for electricity and transport. As Sydney Convenor for the non-partisan, volunteer-led climate change solutions education and research organization, Beyond Zero Emissions, Adam has been working on building community, public sector and political support for the kinds of cultural and economic changes that will be required to make this transition. This work has involved giving numerous public talks to community groups, training speakers, briefing politicians, giving radio interviews and writing popular articles for the mainstream media. 

Drawing on his extensive policy experience in the NSW Government (see below) and the rich STS literature on the politics of scientific and technological decision-making, Adam has most recently been involved in briefing senior policy makers in the NSW Government about the opportunities for investment and employment from wind and solar energy in the State, and the kinds of policy changes that will need to be made to encourage such development.

He recently returned from a study trip to Oklahoma, Texas and California, where he met with and interviewed a number of academics, policy makers, and industry and community leaders about drivers for investment in large-scale renewable energy infrastructure in those three states. This trip, and another soon to be undertaken to the United Kingdom, will provide the basis for a comparative study of policy, law and regulation in relation to electricity generation in Australia, the US, UK, and other European jurisdictions. A critical issue is the extent to which the energy choices pursued by national and regional governments are based more on short-term political and economic expediency than sound empirical evidence or long-term sustainability.

Research in the History of Technology and Science

Adam’s research over the period from 1995 to 2008 focused on a re-evaluation of the contributions of ancient science and technology to the production of scientific and technological knowledge in the early modern period, and of ancient and medieval cultures to the production of modern technical knowledge. In particular, his research was concerned with illuminating aspects of the historiographical debates around:

• the extent to which technical advances in the late medieval and early modern periods contributed to the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions;
• the diffusion and transfer of technical knowledge in the absence of formal scientific and technical institutions;
• narratives of continuity and revolution in the history of the sciences and technology; and
• internalist, externalist and contextualist accounts of scientific and technological change.

Indigenous Studies

Adam worked closely with the former Director of UoW’s Woolyungah Indigenous Knowledge Centre, Associate Professor Kathie Clapham, and the Director of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma, Professor Joe Watkins, to create an indigenous student exchange program between the Universities of Wollongong and Oklahoma. The first exchange of four Aboriginal students to Oklahoma took place in June and July 2010. However, a lack of ongoing financial and administrative commitment from UoW has meant that the program cannot be sustained.

Teaching

Adam has taught more than a dozen different undergraduate subjects at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney University, the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Wollongong (UoW) since the mid-1990s, including HPS and STS subjects at UNSW, Sydney and UoW, and engineering practice subjects at UNSW, UTS and UoW.  

The main focus of his teaching has been across four broad subject areas: the History and Philosophy of Science, the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, the History of Technology, and Environmental Politics and Sociology.

He is currently involved in teaching the following subjects at UoW:

STS 100 Social Aspects of Science & Technology
STS 216/218 Environment in Crisis
STS 112 The Scientific Revolution
STS 209/219 How Science Works: Theories, Methods & Practices in the Sciences
STS 300 The Environmental Context: Imagining a Zero Carbon Future

Government Policy

Between 2002 and 2007, Adam worked in a variety of policy positions in the NSW Government. This included positions in the Social Policy and Intergovernmental Branches of The Cabinet Office for Premier Bob Carr, as well as the Department of State and Regional Development, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Housing NSW.

He has extensive experience in Aboriginal affairs policy across a number of portfolios, and has also worked on policy issues concerning social welfare, local government, commonwealth-state relations, regional development, energy and social housing. He has a continuing interest and involvement in Indigenous affairs-related issues.

Three government publications in which Adam had a central involvement are:

• NSW Government Social Justice Budget Statement 2003-04
• Productivity Commission Report on Government Services 2004-05
• Aboriginal Participation in Construction Guidelines 2007

Media

Prior to pursuing postgraduate studies in STS and HPS in the early 1990s, Adam worked for several years as an art, science and technology journalist, freelancing briefly for JJJ FM, and for 2 SER FM between 1990 and 1991. While undertaking postgraduate studies at UNSW, he wrote for the magazines 21.C, World Art and Black and White. All of his journalistic work was informed by insights he had gained from STS and HPS.

A national lecture tour by Mark Pauline and Leslie Gladsjo from San Francisco-based machine performance collective, Survival Research Laboratories, in 1994 and a national touring exhibition about Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war, titled Viet Nam Voices (2001-03), both curated by Adam, received national media coverage and widespread critical acclaim.

Publications

Full list of publications available from RIS database >

Books:

• Adam Lucas, 2006, Wind, Water, Work: ancient and medieval milling technology, Brill, Leiden. 442 pp., 34 black & white illust.
• Adam Lucas, 2000, (ed.), Viet Nam Voices: Australians and the Vietnam War, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney 160 pp., 200 black & white illust., 34 colour plates.
• Adam Lucas, 1997, (ed.), Viet Nam Voices, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, 96 pp., 82 black & white illust., 16 colour plates.

Book Chapters and Encyclopaedia Articles:

• Adam Lucas, 2011, “Technological Change”, in (eds.), Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Wiley-Blackwell, New York [forthcoming].
• Adam Lucas, 2010, “Narratives of Technological Revolution in the Middle Ages”, in Albrecht Classen (ed.), Handbook of Medieval Studies: Concepts, Methods, Historical Developments, and Current Trends in Medieval Studies
  De Gruyter, Berlin [to be released May 2010].
• Adam Lucas, 2010, “Waterwheels” and “Furnaces”, in Encyclopaedia of the History of Invention and Technology Facts on File, New York [forthcoming].
• Adam Lucas, 2006, “The role of the monasteries in the development of medieval milling”, in Steven A. Walton (ed.), Wind and Water in the Middle Ages: Fluid Technologies from Antiquity to the Renaissance, University of Arizona Press, pp. 89-128.

Refereed Articles:

• Adam Lucas 2005, “Industrial Milling in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: A Survey of the Evidence for an Industrial Revolution in Medieval Europe”, Technology and Culture, Volume 46, No. 1, pp. 1-30 (Johns Hopkins University Press).
• Adam Lucas, 1996, “Indigenous People in Cyberspace”, Leonardo, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 101-8 (MIT Press).
• Adam Lucas, 1994, “Lucas Heights Revisited: The Framing of a Major Scientific Controversy by the Sydney Morning Herald”, Australian Journal of Communication, Vol. 21 (3), pp. 72-91.
• Adam Lucas, 1993, “Art, Science and Technology in an Expanded Field”, Leonardo, Volume 26, Number 4, pp. 335-345 (Pergamon Press)

Non-Refereed Articles:

• Adam Lucas, 2011, “Re-Evaluating the ‘Golden Age’ of the Islamic Sciences”, Essay Review of Mohamad Abdalla, Islamic Science: The Myth of the Decline Theory(2008) in Metascience [forthcoming].
• Adam Lucas, 2010, “Nuclear Energy: A Panacea for Climate Change?”, Australian Options, Spring 2010, No. 62, pp. 11-15.
• Adam Lucas, 2009, “Illuminating the Influence of the Islamic Sciences”, Essay Review of George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (2007), in Metascience, Vol. 18, pp. 233-241 (Kluwer).
• Adam Lucas, 1997, “Humberto Maturana: Interview”, Metascience, New Series Issue 12, pp. 59-70 (Blackwells).
• Adam Lucas, 1994 “Feyerabend's Epistemological Anarchism” Scientia Essays, Vol. 3, pp. 90-111 (UNSW Press).

Book Reviews:

• 2007, Alan Cooper, Bridges, Law and Power in Medieval England, 700-1400 (2006), in The Medieval Review, online publication.
• 2005, Francesc Relaño, The Shaping of Africa: cosmographic discourse and cartographic science in late medieval and early modern Europe (2004), in British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 38, December, pp. 477-8 (Cambridge).
• 2005, John Langdon, Mills in the Medieval Economy: England 1300 -1540 (2004), in Metascience, New Series Vol. 14, Issue 4 (Springer).
• 2003 - “Waterworks”, in Metascience, New Series Vol. 12, Issue 1, pp. 93-6 (Springer).
• 2002, Roberta J. Magnusson, Water technology in the Middle Ages: Cities, Monasteries, and Waterworks after the Roman Empire (2001), in
  Journal of Early Medieval Europe, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 75-6 (Blackwell).

Selected Conference Papers:

• “Getting to Zero: 100% Renewable Energy by 2020”, Social Studies of Science Conference, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Aug 27 2010
• “Carbon Captured: Australia’s Love Affair with Big Coal”, Asia-Pacific Science and Technology Studies Network Conference, Brisbane, Nov 22 2009
• “Narratives of Technological Revolution in the Middle Ages”, International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK. Jul 12 2009
• “Pictures and Words: Technical treatises and managerial documentation in the interpretation of medieval waterpowered machinery”
  Medieval Academy of America Conference, Vancouver. Apr 3 2008
• “The Myth of an Industrial Revolution in the Middle Ages” 12th Biennial National Conference of the Australian Historical Society,
  Newcastle, New South Wales. Jul 8 2004
• “Monastic innovation or monastic oppression: the role of the Church in the development of powered milling in medieval England” Wind and Water: the Medieval Mill Conference, Center for Medieval Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania. Apr 16 2004
• “Industrial Milling in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds” Society for the History of Technology Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada. Oct 19 2002
• “Industrial Milling in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds”Conference for the International Congress on the History of Technology, Universidad, Granada, Spain. Jun 24 2002
• “Were the ancient Atomists the first mechanists?” Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science Conference, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Jul 10 1997
• “Natives Colonize New Technologies”, Australian & New Zealand National Communications Association Conference,           Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. Jun 6 1995
• “Organism and Machine in Ancient Thought”, Postgraduate Conference in the History, Philosophy and Technology of Science, University of Sydney. Oct 21 1995
• “Lucas Heights Revisited: the framing of a major scientific controversy by the Sydney Morning Herald” Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science Conference, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Jun 8 1994
• “Indigenous People in Cyberspace”, International  Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques SIGGRAPH 93, Anaheim, California. Aug 6 1993
• “Techno-Politics and Emergent Concepts in Art and Science”, AUSGRAPH 90 Computer Graphics Conference, Melbourne. Sep 22 1990

Visiting Speaker and Invited Presentations:

• “Interpreting imagery and documentation of medieval waterpowered machinery”, Department of the History of Science, University of Oklahoma, Nov 5 2008
• “Technological Revolutions in the Middle Ages”, Department of History, University of Texas, Austin, Oct 30, 2008
• “Medieval Milling: economic, social and technological development in the transition to modernity”, Staff/Student Seminar, Department of the History of Science, University of Oklahoma. Feb 6 2007
• “Pre-modern machine technologies”, Staff/student seminar, History and Philosophy of Science Unit, Sydney University. Aug 15 2004
• “Ecclesiastical Mills in High Medieval England”, Staff/Student Seminar, Department of Medieval History, University of Birmingham. Nov 6 2000
• “What is Technological Determinism?”, Staff/Student Seminar, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. Oct 12 2000

General Publications:

• Viet Nam Voices: Australians and the Viet Nam War education kit, (editor and contributor), Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, 62 pp., 26 black & white illust., 13 colour plates. 2000
• “The Art of War”, in Ashley Crawford & Ray Edgar (eds.), Transit Lounge: The Best of World Art and 21.C, Craftsmans House, Sydney. 1998
• “Mad Cows and Englishmen”, Black and White, No. 20, p. 22. 1996
• “Digital Mantra”, World Art, No. 1, pp. 45-9. 1996
• “Outbreak", Black and White, No. 15, pp. 22-4. 1995
• “Virtual Life”, Black and White, No. 14, pp. 20-1. 1995
• “Jesus Versus the Robots”, Black and White, No. 13, pp. 24-6.1995
• “Spaces of Inclusion: embracing cultural difference in Western Sydney”, Critical Spaces exhibition catalogue, Artspace Publications, Sydney. 1995
• “True Lies:  Dissident Media in the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession”, 21.C, No. 2, pp. 82-3. 1995
• “The Art of War”, World Art, No. 1, pp. 66-71. 1995
• “Cultural Offensive”, 21.C, No. 1, pp. 42-47. 1995
• “Il conflitto nella ex-Iugoslavia: verità solto assedio”, Nuovo Paese, December, p. 29. 1994
• “Rupert Sheldrake: Shaman, Scientist or Charlatan?”, 21.C, Winter Edition, pp. 82-84, 108-110. 1992

Radio Broadcasts:

• “Nuclear Energy: A Panacea for Climate Change?”, Ockham’s Razor, ABC Radio National, May 30 2011
• World Environment Day Special, “The Politics of Numerical Modelling: Environmental Impact at Wesley Vale”, I/V Dr Bill Hart, Dept. of Oceanography, CSIRO, Hobart, Environment Matters, 2SERFM. Mar 1991
• I/V Dr Rupert Sheldrake, English developmental biologist, Environment Matters, 2SERFM. Jan 1991
• “Castlereagh Toxic Waste Dump”, Environment Matters, 2SERFM. Nov 1990
•  “The Electromagnetic Effect: Understanding energy heralds a new science”, Educational Features, 2SERFM. Aug 1990
• “Quantum theory questions our assumptions about the nature of reality”, Educational Features, 2SERFM.Jul 1990
•  “Science As Social Process”, ABC Radio National, Occam's Razor. Jun 1990
• I/V Dr Roger Malina, editor of the ISAST Journal Leonardo, JJJ FM. Mar 1990
• I/V Professor Mitchell Feigenbaum, Rockefeller University & Dr Gavin Brown, University of New South Wales, International Chaos Theory Conference, JJJ FM. Jan 1990

Research and Travel Grants

 

Year	Grant	Title
2007/08	Mellon Travel Fellowship, University of Oklahoma	Digital Vitruvius – Creating online editions of De Architectura from the University of Oklahoma’s History of Science Collections”
2007/08	FOCAS Distinguished Lecturer Award, University of Oklahoma	Two Ways Together: Progress and problems with whole-of-government approaches to Aboriginal affairs policy in the state of New South Wales, Australia
2004	University of Pennsylvania Conference Travel Grant	Monastic innovation or monastic oppression: the role of the Church in the development of powered milling in medieval England
2002	Society for the History of Technology Travel Grant	Industrial Milling in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds
2000	Postgraduate External Research Grant University of New South Wales	Ecclesiastical Mills in High Medieval England
1997	Ian Langham Bursary Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science	Were the ancient Atomists the first mechanists?
1995	Postgraduate Conference Travel Grant University of New South Wales	Lucas Heights Revisited: the framing of a major scientific controversy by the Sydney Morning Herald
1993	Tri-Community Exchange Travel Grant	Indigenous People in Cyberspace
1986	Research and Development Grant Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Trust for Young Australians	Science in Perspective

Professional Memberships

• Asia-Pacific Science and Technology Studies Network (2009 >)
• Society for the History of Technology (2002 >)
• Sydney Medieval and Renaissance Group (2002 >)
• Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (1995 >)
• National Tertiary Education Union