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The Ancient and Modern Challenges of Technology--Gulliver’s Travel to Laputa by Dr. Tiffany Schubert

The After Dinner Scholar

In addition to being an Anglican priest, Jonathan Swift had a special gift for satire. "Satire," he wrote “is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.” Writing amid the scientific and technological advancements of the early 1700s, Swift was less than convinced that the progress was actually progress and in Gulliver’s Travels he included a voyage to the flying island of Laputa where science and technology come under his satirical gaze. Dr. Tiffany Schubert gave this introduction to Gulliver’s adventures on Laputa.