Tim LeCain’s book is out on Rutgers University Press!
MASS DESTRUCTION:
The Men and Giant Mines That Wired America and Scarred the Planet (Rutgers University Press, 2009)
Timothy J. LeCain Continue reading
Category: News
Envirotech Roundtable at SHOT
The Sunday, 9-10:15 am session slot at SHOT 2009 in Pittsburgh has been dedicated to SIG-specific sessions. Envirotech will be having a session called “Taking Risks: New Directions in the History of Technology and Environment.” The session will begin by having panelists present some ideas about where they see Envirotech potentially going based on their own research or project ideas. We have two senior panelists and four graduate students doing some exciting cutting edge stuff who are slated to talk: Ed Russell (Univ of Virginia); Joy Parr (Univ of Western Ontario); Daniel Barber (Columbia Univ); Robert Gardner (Montana State); Shera Moxley (Carnegie Mellon Univ); and Nic Mink (Univ of Wisconsin-Madison). Using the short presentations as a springboard, we will have a group discussion about where Envirotech might be headed in the future.
We hope to see many of you there.
New book: Perilous Place, Powerful Storms: Hurricane Protection in Coastal Louisiana
The University Press of Mississippi will release Craig Colten’s new book, Perilous Place, Powerful Storms: Hurricane Protection in Coastal Louisiana in July 2009.
The hurricane protection systems that failed New Orleans when Katrina roared on shore in 2005 were the product of four decades of engineering hubris, excruciating delays, and social conflict. In Perilous Place, Powerful Storms, Craig E. Colten traces the protracted process of erecting massive structures designed to fend off tropical storms and examines how human actions and inactions left the system incomplete on the eve of its greatest challenge.
For more information see: http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1177
Informal meeting at the World Congress in August
Invitation to World Congress participants
Envirotech will be having an informal meeting during the World Congress of Environmental History in Copenhagen. The meeting will be Friday, 7 August, 16:00 – 17:00 at Cafe Væksthuset ( a nearby cafe constructed from an old University of Copenhagen greenhouse). The meeting will include ample time to meet and greet fellow envirotechies, share individual project & publication news, and get updated on happenings within the organization.
We will have a reserved space in the cafe for the group but no refreshments will be provided. Attendees are encouraged to buy food and/or drink at the cafe and bring it to our tables, since the cafe is not charging us to meet there. A sample of their offerings can be viewed at http://www.cafe.life.ku.dk/Udvalg.aspx (in Danish).
If you are interested in attending the meeting, please email me at dolly@jorgensenweb.net (this is not a commitment to attend but it will help the cafe know how many people will be there). I will send out a map with walking directions from the conference site to the cafe to those who email me.
CFP: Reusing the Industrial Past – ICOHTEC & TICCIH Joint Conference 2010
ICOHTEC & TICCIH Joint Conference 2010
Reusing the Industrial Past
10–15 August 2010 Tampere, Finland
A Joint Conference between the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) and The International Committee for the
Conservation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH). The International Association of the Labour Museums (WORKLAB) is a minor partner in the conference. Continue reading
CFP: “Modeling Spaces – Modifying Societies”
Conference organized by the graduate program Topology of Technology of the Darmstadt University of Technology
To be held at the Fraunhofer IGD, Darmstadt, Germany, 7 – 9 October, 2009
Phenomena recognized as spatial arrangements are complex—thus we need tools to cope with them. Models can serve as tools for researchers and practitioners alike. There are two distinct yet interwoven aspects of models, both of which will be addressed by this conference: models as analytical devices and models as a reference for intervention. Models and other forms of abstract representations are generated to organize findings and to simulate options. In decision-making processes models have an enormous impact in that they provide guidelines for implementations as well as legitimation in situations of conflict, even though they are also increasingly understood as constructions. Continue reading
Fellowships for 2009-2011 – The Rachel Carson Center, Munich, Germany.
The Rachel Carson Center for Environmental Studies is a joint initiative of Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and the Deutsches Museum. Generously supported by the German Ministry for Research and Education, the Rachel Carson Center’s goal is to further research and discussion in the field of international environmental studies and to strengthen the role of the humanities in the current political and scientific debates about the environment. Special emphasis will be placed on international, comparative and historical perspectives. The Center is designed to bring together leading academics from all over the world who work on the complex relationship between nature and culture across disciplines. Individual projects will focus on different time periods and different geographic areas. The Center is named after the worldwide recognized American scientist and nature writer Rachel Carson. It is conceived as an international think tank that will discuss and analyze the role of human actors and the role of nature in this relationship. The Center’s working language is English.
Envirotech meeting at ASEH, 2/28/09
The Envirotech breakfast was attended by nearly 30 people. It provided the opportunity hear what people are working on–projects started, books published, organizations and groups founded.
The main topic of discussion was the proposal from SHOT to give all the SIGs a slot on Sunday morning at the conference in Pittsburgh this fall. There was general agreement that the time should not be used for either a traditional panel or a workshop specifically related to teaching. The suggestion that received the most support was to have an open-ended discussion by all participants about their research and new projects. The purpose would be to encourage “risky ideas” on the part of people considering new perspectives and possibilities. Continue reading
Jobs: Two associate senior lecturers in the field of science, technology and environmental studies at the Faculty of Arts, Umeå University, Sweden
We are looking for two persons with a doctoral degree or the equivalent who present research plans with a high degree of relevance for the appointments. The place of work for the appointments will be the Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies.
The appointees’ research programmes must be clearly linked to the research area of science, technology and environment studies, i.e. culture studies research on science, technology and the environment, relations between these areas and society as a whole. (www8.umu.se/humfak/forskning/vtm.html). One of the appointments is directed mainly towards science and technology (dnr 312-138-09); the other mainly towards the environment (dnr 312-139-09). Continue reading
New book: Horses at Work
Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America
Ann Norton Greene
Harvard University Press, 2008
Historians have long assumed that new industrial machines and power sources eliminated work animals from nineteenth-century America, yet a bird’s-eye view of nineteenth-century society would show millions of horses supplying the energy necessary for industrial development. Horses were ubiquitous in cities and on farms, providing power for transportation, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture. On Civil War battlefields, thousands of horses labored and died for the Union and the Confederacy hauling wagons and mechanized weaponry.