Calè, Luisa (2024) ‘Knowledge is Power’: literature, invention, radical thinking at the London Mechanics’ Institution. 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 36 , ISSN 1755-1560.
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Abstract
On the occasion of the bicentenary of the London Mechanics’ Institution, this introduction goes back to the Baconian motto ‘Knowledge is Power’ adopted by the early proponents of mechanics’ education to reconstruct the place and function of literature in mechanic invention, practical education, and useful knowledge, against the backdrop of its emergence as an autonomous discipline of the creative imagination. Analysis of different published versions of George Birkbeck’s speech on the laying of the first stone of the lecture room in December 1824 reveals the precarious status of literature in the mechanics’ ‘Temple of Reason’ under construction: foregrounded in one version, excluded from another. Why? This intervention explores what is at stake in its inclusion or exclusion then and now, in the current predicament of the arts and humanities locally, nationally, and internationally.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | London Mechanics’ Institution, ‘Knowledge is Power’, literature, practical education, 1820s, Mechanics’ Magazine |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Nineteenth-Century Studies, Centre for |
| Depositing User: | Luisa Cale |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Nov 2024 14:22 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Nov 2024 15:45 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/54531 |
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