Critical Reading Group: 24th June 200,  6.30pm - 8.00pm

Convenor: Dr Mahbub Gani 

Reading: Stuart W. Leslie and Robert Kargon, 'Exporting MIT:Science, Technology, and Nation-Building in India and Iran.' The History of Science Society, 21 : 110–130, 2006.(Link )

ABSTRACT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) emerged from World War II with an impressive, worldwide reputation in basic and applied science and engineering. After redefining its own engineering education in the 1950s, MIT responded to the challenge of U.S. policy makers and foundation officials and its own sense of mission in engineering research, teaching, and practice by assisting in establishing new technical institutions of higher education around the world. This paper focuses on MIT’s participation in the creation of such institutions in India and in Iran. Three case studies explore the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, and the Aryamehr University of Technology. The aim of establishing an international system of expertise with MIT at its apex reveals both the strengths and the limitations of the “export” effort.

This paper contains a lot of practical history of post WW2 scientific development in the east with US cooperation, a little background of Seyyed Hossain Nasr's technological history. It gives you an idea of the playfulness of agencies like USAID with technical education back in the day.

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