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

借鉴研究技术的文化建设和研究文化遗产运动的对象化，本论文的研究项目探讨了“工业浪漫主义”的基础上恢复第11次世界大战的飞机，被称为warbirds。工业浪漫主义被视为与传统的田园浪漫主义的对比，后者是大多数遗产运动的特征。通过对战鸟群体和航展的民族志调查，本项目将考察战鸟对传统浪漫主义反现代主义技术观的颠覆。因此，这个项目将揭示一种新的浪漫主义形式，通过研究作为过去的客观化的过时技术的改造或重新发明。人种学研究将主要在南加州进行，在战鸟团体的维修机库，在战鸟修复者的车间，在战鸟博物馆和航展。除了在这些地点进行参与观察外，研究人员还将采访战鸟的私人主人和主要研究地点以外的其他类型的参与战鸟的人。

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.