Dissertation Research: "A Better Past Through Technology: World War II Aircraft as a Form of Cultural Heritage"

通过对技术文化建构的研究和对遗产运动中文化物化的研究，本论文的研究项目考察了“工业浪漫主义”，这是第二次世界大战中被称为“战鸟”的飞机修复的基础。工业浪漫主义被视为与传统的田园浪漫主义形成对比，后者是大多数遗产运动的特征。通过对战鸟群体和飞行表演的民族志调查，该项目将研究战鸟对传统浪漫主义的反现代主义技术观点的反转。因此，该项目将通过对过时技术的改造或再发明作为对过去的客观化来揭示一种新的浪漫主义形式。人种学研究将主要在南加州、在战鸟群的维修机库、在战鸟修复者的车间、在战鸟博物馆和在航展上进行。除了在这些地点进行参与性观察外，研究人员还将采访战鸟的私人所有者以及主要研究地点以外与战鸟有关的其他类型的人。

Drawing on research into the cultural construction of technology and research on the objectification of culture in heritage movements, this dissertation research project examines the "industrial romanticism" which underlies the restoration of World War 11 airplanes, known as warbirds. Industrial romanticism is seen as a contrast to traditional, pastoral romanticism that characterizes most heritage movements. Through an ethnographic investigation of warbird groups and airshows, this project will examine warbirds' inversion of traditional romanticism's anti-modernist view of technology. This project will therefore shed light a new form of romanticism by examining the remaking or reinvention of an obsolete technology as an objectification of the past. Ethnographic research will be conducted in mostly Southern California, in the maintenance hangars of warbird groups, in the workshops of warbird restorers, at warbird museums, and at airshows. In addition to participant observation in these sites, the researcher will interview private owners of warbirds and other types of people involved in warbirds outside of the main research sites.