Daniel McAteer

Research Topic

Freedom on the Electronic Frontier: New Spirits of Capitalism in Silicon Valley, 1970-2000.

Supervisor: Professor David Priestland and Professor Ralph Schroeder

My project investigates the history of political thought in relation to digital technology, particularly digital utopianism and what is known as "cyberlibertarianism," c.1970-2000. I am interested in the intersection between futurism, systems theories, and new ideas about management and globalisation, and how these things were synthesised in the work of Silicon Valley's tech gurus. And I am also interested in the ways networking technologies were seen as the royal road to liberal utopia. 
 

Supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council and Wadham College, I began work on this DPhil project in early 2021. Before this, I completed my undergraduate studies in history at Oxford's Pembroke College, followed by postgraduate work in the history of science, medicine, and technology at St Edmund Hall, supported by the Ertegun Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities. 

Outside academia, I used to work for one of Oxford's access and outreach initiative, OxNet, which seeks to widen participation in higher education among historically disadvantaged groups. I continue to have a keen interest in university access, and welcome opportunities to contribute to any initiatives where I might be useful.