Adam Lucas

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

Adam Lucas is a lecturer in the Science and Technology Studies Program in the School of English Literatures, Philosophy and Languages. He joined the University of Wollongong in March 2008. Adam’s current research is focused on the history of premodern and early modern science and technology. His earlier research was in the sociology of science and technology, with a particular focus on scientific controversies and the politics of technological development.

Current Research

Adam’s research over the last twelve years has 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 has been concerned with illuminating aspects of the historiographical debates around:

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

His current research is concerned with:

• articulating some of the key technical developments in the late medieval and early modern periods that contributed to the automation of factory production in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and
• an examination of the experimental practices and methodologies articulated by proponents of mechanistic natural philosophies during the Scientific Revolution to gauge the extent to which they deployed technical knowledge from contemporary crafts and industries to inform and buttress their claims to authority.

Adam has also recently begun working with academic staff in the Woolyungah Indigenous Knowledge Centre to set up an indigenous student exchange and work experience program between the Universities of Wollongong, Oklahoma and British Columbia, and is working on a proposal for a nationwide Zero Greenhouse Emissions Policy Network based at UoW, drawing on his extensive policy experience in the NSW Government (see below).  

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.

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 had been working 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. Following the opening of the latter exhibition at the (then) recently opened Melbourne Museum, Adam was interviewed by ABC Local Radio, The Age newspaper, and SBS TV World News.

Publications

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, 2008, “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 [forthcoming].
• Adam Lucas, 2008, “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, 1994, “Feyerabend's Epistemological Anarchism”, Scientia Essays, Vol. 3, pp. 90-111 (UNSW Press).
• 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, 1997, “Humberto Maturana: Interview”, Metascience, New Series Issue 12, pp. 59-70 (Blackwells).

Book Reviews:

• George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (2007), in Metascience (Kluwer) [forthcoming].
  
  
• Alan Cooper, Bridges, Law and Power in Medieval England, 700-1400 (2006), in The Medieval Review, online publication.
• 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).
• 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).
• 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:

• “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:

• “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:

• 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

Visiting Fellow

(2008) School of History and Philosophy, University of New South Wales.

Professional Memberships

• Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (1995 >).
• Society for the History of Technology (2002 >).
• Sydney Medieval and Renaissance Group (2002 >).

E-mail alucas@uow.edu.au
Phone 02 4221 4659

Last reviewed: 22 May, 2008