[Themaintainers] theologies of maintenance

[Lawrence Greenspun]

David,

Great to "meet" you. I was a Jewish Studies/Religious Studies major at Penn in the mid-80s.

As I read your questions, what immediately sprang to mind was the Lurianic Kabbalah concept of tikkun olan (repair of the world), following the shevirat ha'kelim (shattering of the vessels) carrying the divine sparks for creation of the world.

Sorry if this was an obvious/simplistic example--it's been three decades since I've been immersed in this stuff.

Lee's highlighting of the maintenance requirements of ritual objects in Judaism seems aligned with your thinking. I've always thought there were interesting parallels between the detail given for the building of the ark in Genesis (Noah's Ark) and the Mishkan (Ark of the Covenant) carried by the Children of Israel after receiving the Ten Commandments. The texts read almost like a DIY construction and maintenance manual. Don't know if there's anything there for you.

Hope that's some help,
Lawrence


Lawrence Greenspun,  Director of Public Sector Engagement
drucker.institute<https://www.drucker.institute/> | O: 909-607-8755; M: 610.667.3140 | @DruckerInst<https://twitter.com/>
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________________________________
From: themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu <themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu> on behalf of Lee Vinsel <lee.vinsel at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2019 12:03 PM
To: David Zvi Kalman
Cc: Themaintainers
Subject: Re: [Themaintainers] theologies of maintenance

Hi, David.

I think you and I met briefly at SHOT St. Louis. Thanks for writing the list.

I have been very interested in the relationship between religion and maintenance since Andy and I started working on this topic. I have talked to several people about this topic and some have brought it up at our Maintainers conferences. For instance, Varun Adibhatla talked about the image I paste below, drawing on Hindu theology around Vishnu, Siva, and Brahma. And I have talked to the philosopher Paul Boshears about notions of innovation, maintenance, and tradition in Confucianism. (A big issue is how different faiths approach these fundamental concepts.) But to my knowledge there has yet to be a larger conversation about it - I would love to see a workshop on the topic! - and I don't know of many publications.

Of course, we have to be careful with our terms. At the broadest scale, religions with long histories are clearly very good at "maintaining" cultures by passing down ideas, beliefs, practices, etc. But even at a narrower level - the maintenance and repair of physical objects (that aren't neurons - lol) - religions have a lot to say. On pages 8-9 of  "After Innovation, Turn to Maintenance" (attached), Andy and I layout a few thoughts, mostly in hopes of spurring further research. We talk about rules within Judaism around the inspection, maintenance, and repair of holy objects (which I learned about from my friend Robin Hammerman), and we discuss Francesca Bray's foundational work on Confucianism and technology, which has influenced us a great deal. Finally, Mike Geselowitz of the IEEE History Center is very interested in the precise idea you bring up from Jewish theology and Kabbalism: that without God's constant maintenance - or maybe more accurately constant RE-creation - existence would not exist. Oh, and a final, final thought: I have a soft spot for Bruno Latour's essay on Frankenstein, "Love Your Monsters<https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/issue-2/love-your-monsters>," which I think you could read in a theological light, including the light of Latour's Catholicism.

Hopefully some other folks on the list will have more literature thoughts for you. I'm sure I'm forgetting things . . . it's Sunday and I'm foggy (as you can tell by the fact that I brought up Latour).

Lee

>From Varun Adibhatla's Maintainers talk:

[unnamed.png]


On Sun, Mar 17, 2019 at 9:29 AM David Zvi Kalman <depst at sas.upenn.edu<mailto:depst at sas.upenn.edu>> wrote:
Hi all,

I'm a PhD student working at the intersection of Jewish history and the history of technology. I'm currently doing research on "theologies of maintenance" — that is, understandings of God as a being without whom the universe would cease to exist/fall apart/etc.

Does anyone know if this frame has been associated with technological maintenance in the past? There is so much rich material to work with and I would be surprised if I'm the first to look into this.

Thanks,

David Zvi Kalman

--
David Zvi Kalman
PhD Candidate
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
University of Pennsylvania
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Assistant Professor
Department of Science, Technology, and Society
Virginia Tech
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