Review of Elisavet Ioannidou’s “Neo-Victorian Visions of the Future: Science, Crime, and Modernity

摘要

The nineteenth century saw the rise of industrialization and its effects on human productionand consumption. Luddite textile workers and weavers once furiously resisted thedeployment of machines within factories and expressed their prescient fears of how suchinnovations might diminish the demand for skilled laborers. However, the creation of manyfactory-based technologies, such as water wheels and turbines, steam engines, and gaspower, were the result of the practical applications of scientific knowledge for commercialpurposes. More recent developments in science and technology have exacerbatedcontemporary fears of nuclear energy, human cloning, cybercrime, biological terrorism,and infrastructural violence. Although our concerns may proportionally dwarf those of ourVictorian forbearers, we have not proved ourselves any wiser or more competent inresolving them. We share a common fear of how science and technology may bemalevolently deployed with catastrophic and irreversible consequences.