Dear All,
We’re pleased to announce the next installment of the SPT maintenance and
philosophy special interest group. In this session, we’re excited to
welcome Brooke Rudow (University of Central Florida) who’ll be sharing her
research on practices of home maintenance in relation to philosophical
conceptions of the home. By exploring how domestic maintenance practices
form a basis for identity formation, and examining how these ideas resonate
with the work of philosophers of technology such as Albert Borgmann,
Brooke’s work makes an important contribution to the nascent field of
philosophy of maintenance. If you'd like a link for the talk, please email
me at mark@markthomasyoung.net
Best,
Mark
“The Focality of Maintenance and the Making of Home"
Brooke Rudow (University of Central Florida)
Thursday 14th November 2024 1800-1915 UTC+1
Abstract: Home is a site of continual maintenance. The cyclical nature of
upkeep is the bane of many but is just as much a practice of
meaning-making. As a step is replaced, a shutter painted, or winter
sweaters are put away to make room for summer shorts, the time and energy,
the sore muscles and exhausted minds all contribute to making a place one’s
home. The home is a primal site of identity formation, the basis for our
bodily comportment, a template for dwelling across the span of our lives,
and where a sense of responsibility takes root. But a home is not a home if
we do not maintain it. The step rots, the shutter falls; clothing is ripped
and torn. Having a home requires taking care of it, and home maintenance
practices pervade much of our lives. From regular and mundane household
activities to unexpected and expensive home repair, home maintenance never
stops. Put another way, homemaking is home maintaining. As a site within
the philosophy of maintenance, the home is fertile, yet underdeveloped,
ground. While feminist scholars have long called for the personal and
domestic to emerge as realms of serious academic consideration, the home is
largely missing from mainstream philosophical discussions. Home
- maintenance*, then, is doubly removed, as philosophy of maintenance is
only recently gaining the attention it deserves within the philosophy of
technology (Young and Coekelbergh 2024). In spite of a relatively robust
history of scholarship in many other fields, philosophers have been slow to
recognize the importance of questions concerning the processual and
transformative natures of our technologies (M. T. Young 2024). This paper
aims to repair some of the holes in the literature through a consideration
of the value of home maintenance practices.
(In order to avoid confusion regarding the timing of the talks - the
following table clarifies when the talks begin in different locations. Please
note that due to daylight savings this talk will occur an hour earlier than
the previous talks in this series)
New York: 12:00
San Francisco: 09:00
London: 17:00
Amsterdam: 18:00
Mark Thomas Young
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Oslo
https://uio.academia.edu/MarkThomasYoung
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