Aramis, or the Love of Technology

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Aramis, or the Love of Technology, was written by French sociologist/anthropologist Bruno Latour. Aramis was originally published in French in 1993; the English translation by Catherine Porter, copyrighted in 1996, ISBN 978-0-674-04323-7, is now in its fourth edition (2002). Latour describes his text as "scientifiction," which he describes as "a hybrid genre... for a hybrid task" (p. ix). The genre includes voices of a young engineer discussing his "sociotechnological initiation," his professor's commentary which introduces Actor-network theory (ANT), field documents - including real-life interviews, and the voice of Aramis—a failed technology (^[1] p. x).

The book is a quasi-mystery, which attempts to discover who killed Aramis (personal rapid transit). Aramis was supposed to be implemented as a Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system in Paris. Simultaneously, while investigating Aramis's demise, Latour delineates the tenets of Actor-network theory. Latour argues that the technology failed not because any particular actor killed it, but because the actors failed to sustain it through negotiation and adaptation to a changing social situation.

Table of contents

• Preface
• Prologue: Who Killed Aramis?

1. An Exciting Innovation
2. Is Aramis Feasible?
3. Shilly-Shallying in the Seventies
4. Interphase: Three Years of Grace
5. The 1984 Decision: Aramis Exists for Real
6. Aramis at the CET Stage: Will it Keep its Promise?
7. Aramis is Ready to Go (Away)

• Epilogue: Aramis Unloved
• Glossary

See also

• Laboratory life (with Steve Woolgar)
• Science in action
• Politics of nature
• We Have Never Been Modern

Notes

1. ^ Latour, Bruno. (1996). Aramis, or the Love of Technology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.