Joshua brinkman

I am an Assistant Teaching Professor of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) at North Carolina State University and an historian and science and technology studies scholar who focuses on the relationship between technology use and identity, as well as the impact of science and technology on policy and the legal system. My research explores the meaning of technology in rural culture, the interplay between technology and race and gender, and the impact of social and cultural constructs on business, law, and policy in the U.S.  My work also critically studies food, society, and the environment including modernity in American agriculture and its interaction with the organic foods movement.

In my most recent book, American Farming Culture and the History of Technology, I present a history of agriculture in the American Corn Belt arguing that modernization occurred not only for economic reasons but also because of how farmers use technology as a part of their identity and culture. 

Histories of agriculture often fail to give agency to farmers in bringing about change and ignore how people embed technology with social meaning. My narrative shows how farmers use technology to express their identities in unspoken ways and provides a framework for bridging the current rural-urban divide by presenting a fresh perspective on rural cultural practices. Focusing on German and Jeffersonian farmers in the 18th Century and Corn Belt producers in the 1920s, the Cold War, and the recent period of globalization, this book traces how farmers formed their own versions of rural modernity.  Rural people use technology to contest urban modernity and debunk yokel stereotypes and women specifically employed technology to resist urban gender conceptions. The book shows how this performance of rural identity through technological use impacts a variety of current policy issues and business interests surrounding contemporary agriculture from the controversy over genetically modified organisms and hog confinement facilities to the growth of wind energy and precision technologies.  Inspired by the author's own experience on his family’s farm, this book provides a novel and important approach to understanding how farmers’ culture has changed over time, and why machinery is such a potent part of their identity. 

My teaching focus is on STS, the history of technology, U.S. history, U.S. business history, engineering studies, and the history of law.

Josh received his Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies, at Virginia Tech; his J.D. in law from the University of Minnesota Law School; and his B.A. degrees from Virginia Tech in Economics and History.  He is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. He has taught courses in History, Science and Technology at several universities and has authored a new book and many articles featured in scholarly publications.  He resides in Hillsborough, NC and, also enjoys playing jazz saxophone and clarinet in several bands in the Raleigh-Durham area.