The development of this week’s discussions was driven by theory as a technology. Technology, according to Erin Daugherty (who relied on her “friend”) is “elusive; 'technology' can refer to material objects of use to humanity, such as machines, hardware or utensils, but can also encompass broader themes, including systems, methods of organization, and techniques" (Daughtery).
My meta-comment post for this week’s discussion on Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map will attempt to track the process the posters used to do more than just summarize the reading, but to analyze Johnson’s architecture of the book and the reading’s relation to our mapping project. Popular discussion points were the method Johnson used to design the book, mixing narrative and scientific format and by using characters who represent the scientific views and the social views of the cholera epidemic.
This week’s discussion on the Ghost Map mainly focused on questions from the reading guide we received. Though much was said in this week’s discussion, I will try to limit my summary to the few topics that are most valuable to this class.
Theory As Technology
This week's discussion in the forums focused on The Ghost Map by Steve Johnson. The major idea expressed in the forums was the idea of theory as technology and how research and rhetoric work with it.
There were many different topics of discussion about the book. I felt that while some of them were valid, they were not as helpful in understanding the text or the context of the situation as the discussion about bad miscommunication.
Reading Stephen Johnson's "The Ghost Map," I was struck by the readability of the book. Several times during the reading, I felt like I was reading a novel. Johnson infuses his history with a hermeneutic code (plot elements which raise questions that readers keep going in order to answer). He introduces a choleric baby who doesn't die for pages. On page 79, Johnson creates a scene of dramatic irony when he shows Henry Whitehead drinking brandy mixed with water from the Broad Street pump, which the reader knows has been contaminated with the bacteria.
In The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson, the book provides far more information into London's horrific cholera outbreak than the basic mapping of "it started here and ended there, all because no one knew how cholera transferred." The book goes into lengthy discussion providing many different angles on the outbreak, including the sociological, psychological, demographic, economic, and scientific status of London and its people going into the outbreak. It maps far more intricacies than the standard and "a + b = c" explanation that many authors might be tempted to settle with.
Steven Johnson’s national bestseller ‘The Ghost Map' chronicles the life and times of late 1800s London, starting just before and an outbreak of cholera and following through the resulting turmoil. In the first 109 pages, he describes the conditions that allowed such a horrible disease to prosper. Johnson also outlines how the cholera began and then spread throughout the various neighborhoods of London and offers the multiple theories that were suggested by local physicians, surgeons, patent medicine makers, and laypersons.