Deadline for Submissions, October 1, 2010

Contemporary debates about food, agriculture, and rural life are often framed in opposition with little attention to historical context. Proponents of the local, slow, and organic often emphasize quality while advocates of the global, fast, and industrial stress quantity to satisfy world demand for food. The Agricultural History Society invites proposals for papers that engage or transcend these debates by examining questions about quality and quantity as they relate to food, farming, and/or rural life from a historical perspective. We especially welcome submissions that counter or reframe the accepted narratives of the field. Topics from any time period and location are welcome.

The AHS encourages proposals of all types and formats, including traditional sessions with successive papers and commentary, thematic panel discussions or debates, roundtables on recent books/films, and poster presentations. The program committee prefers complete session proposals, but individual paper proposals are welcome. The AHS extends a special welcome to graduate students and provides up to $250 in travel reimbursement to each graduate student whose paper is accepted for the conference.

Paper proposals should consist of a 200-word abstract and one-page CV. Session proposals should include a 200-word session summary to accompany the 200-word paper abstracts as well as a one-page CV for each participant.

Submit all proposals to:
Joe Anderson
Mount Royal University
jlanderson@mtroyal.ca

Questions may be directed to any member of the program committee:
Jenny Barker-Devine
Illinois College
Jenny.barkerdevine@ic.edu

Susan Sessions Rugh
Brigham Young University
susan_rugh@byu.edu

Mark Hersey
Mississippi State University
mhersey@history.msstate.edu

David Vail
Kansas State University
ddvail@k-state.edu

LeCain takes the reader on a marvelous journey, which starts with cosmic super-giant stars and their role in the creation of copper and ends with the engineers that built the technologies of “mass destruction” to access the king metal. As LeCain tours ranchlands strewn with dying livestock with faces devoured by industrial poisons, the reader learns in no uncertain terms the connections between technologies, economies, engineered environments, and the bodies that live on and near them.

LeCain proposes that historians often talk of mass production and mass consumption, but rarely of the mass destruction that underlay the mining that produced the copper that connects virtually every element of modern life, from refrigerator coils to battleships.  The writing is eloquent and it effectively leads the reader through the story at a brisk pace. For LeCain, technological systems, ranch lands and the livestock that dwell there, engineered subterranean environments, riparian ecosystem, Rocky Mountain cities, and the porous human bodies that call these places home all seamlessly connect, both in his narrative and his analysis. It is a great read.

George Perkins Marsh Prize Committee:

Brett L. Walker, Chair

Thomas Andrews

Thomas Zeller

http://www.aseh.net/awards/comments-on-award-recipients

NYU’s Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health seeks a one-year visiting professor in food systems or sustainability.  The NYU Food Studies program takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying food production and consumption, particularly in urban settings.  The program examines the complexities of supplying the city, including food distribution and transportation, water and waste management, and the rural/urban interface.  Policy and health issues are also germane to food systems.

Qualifications:  Doctorate in related field, teaching experience, record of research.  We are willing to consider candidates with a range of research interests, which may include: environmental studies; urban studies or planning with a concentration in the rural/urban interface; waste and/or water management; public policy (i.e., agricultural policy and urban markets); political or cultural geography; agroecology; landscape design with a focus on the northeast.

Responsibilities:  We are seeking candidates who can contribute to the NYU food studies program, particularly courses in the masters’ program food systems concentration.  The candidate will be expected to be an active teacher and to engage in the intellectual life of the program and the department.  The position is to begin September 1, 2010.

Applications:  Please apply online by providing a cover letter including a list of three references and their email addresses (letters are not required at this time), CV, related syllabi/course outlines, publications (as appropriate) to:  Food Systems Program, Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New York University, School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, 35 West 4th Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY  10012.  Information about NYU food studies can be found at:  http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/nutrition/food/ma

Apply online at:  http://www.nyuopsearch.com/applicants/Central?quickFind=50489

Applications due:  April 1, 2010.

New York University is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to building a culturally diverse educational environment.

We seek an established scholar with an excellent record of peer-reviewed
publications, grants, and teaching. Ph.D. in history, or a relevant discipline,
is required before date of hire. Preferred qualifications include expertise in
19th-century U.S. History; experience in graduate training and mentoring; and
experience in working on collaborative interdisciplinary grants.

The successful candidate will be expected to pursue an active research agenda
leading to publications in peer-reviewed scholarly venues; collaborate on
interdisciplinary grants and research related to environment topics, especially
with UA faculty associated with the Institute of the Environment; effectively
teach undergraduate and graduate history courses; advise and mentor graduate
students; and actively contribute to department, college, and university
service committees and participate in professional organizations and public
engagement.

The department seeks individuals who are able to work with diverse students and
colleagues and who have experience with a variety of teaching methods and
curricular perspectives. As an equal opportunity and affirmative action
employer, the University of Arizona recognizes the power of a diverse community
and encourages applications from individuals with varied experiences,
perspectives and backgrounds M/W/D/V.

Salary is commensurate with qualifications and experience. To apply, please go
to http://www.hr.arizona.edu (job number: 44430), complete the on-line faculty
application, and attach a letter of application describing research and
teaching interests and experience, curriculum vitae with the names of three
professional references. To ensure consideration, candidates must apply to this
on-line posting. The additional materials – CV and Letter of Application- may
either be included with the on-line application, or may be mailed directly to
the Search Chair at the address below. Review of applicants will begin 2/15/10
and will continue until the position is filled.

Prof. Katherine Morrissey
Chair, U.S. Environmental History Search Committee
Department of History
Social Sciences, Room 217
P.O. Box 210027
The University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona 85721
(520) 621-1586 or 626-8429

Deadline: 31 March 2010

The Society for the History of Technology will hold its annual meeting in Tacoma, Washington from September 30 to October 3, 2010. The Program Committee invites paper and panel proposals on any topic in the history of technology, broadly defined. Sessions dealing with non-Western technologies are particularly welcome. Of special interest for 2010 are proposals that engage in themes that resonate with the concerns of the specific locale. These include:

Consumption: In the popular imagination, the Tacoma-Seattle area is associated with several important corporate entities (Boeing, Microsoft, Nintendo, Starbucks, etc.) whose goods and services are deeply embedded in global consumer culture. At a moment in time when consumption, sometimes excessive, sometimes globalized, sometimes exploitative, is of great concern to both the public and policy-makers, Tacoma is an appropriate place for historians to (re)consider technologies of consumption. We are especially interested in papers that see production and consumption as coterminous processes and which historicize consumption as part of broader processes in the history of technology. We define consumption very broadly to include the public’s active engagement with technologies and technological systems, which may include environmental, communications, and obsolete technologies.

The Program Committee encourages sessions dealing with topics appropriate to the meeting location, such as aerospace and maritime history, labor history, forest products, information technology, and themes relevant to the Pacific world. We also encourage historians of technology to reach out to scholars in aligned and/or related fields when constructing research proposals as one way to create a more interdisciplinary environment. Finally, we invite papers and panel proposals that emphasize the longue durée, particularly those that problematize demarcations such as modern/premodern, colonial/postcolonial, and preindustrial/industrial. As always, sessions dealing with pre-modern, Medieval, and ancient topics are especially welcome.

The Program Committee’s highest priority in evaluating paper and panel proposals is scholarly excellence. The Committee welcomes proposals for individual papers or sessions, as well as works-in-progress from researchers of all stripes (including graduate students, chaired professors, and independent scholars). It welcomes proposals from those new to SHOT, regardless of discipline. Multinational, international, and cross-institutional sessions are also desirable. We especially encourage proposals from non-Western scholars.

For the 2010 meeting the Program Committee continues to encourage unconventional sessions; that is, session formats that vary in useful ways from the typical three/four papers with comment. These might include round-table sessions, workshop-style sessions with papers that are pre-circulated electronically, or “author meets critics” sessions. We also welcome poster proposals for presentation in poster sessions. Please note that in general we discourage panels with more than three papers.

The deadline for proposals is 31 March 2010.  Please submit your proposals to shot.tacoma2010@gmail.com.

Proposals for individual papers must include:
1. a one-page abstract (maximum 600 words)
2. a one-page curriculum vitae, including current postal and e-mail addresses

Proposals for complete sessions must include:
1. a description of the session that explains how individual papers contribute to an overall theme.
2. the names and paper titles of the presenters
3. for each presenter, a one-page summary (maximum 600 words) of the paper’s topic, argument(s), and evidence used
4. for the commentator, chair, and each presenter: one-page c.v., with postal and e-mail addresses

Please indicate if a proposal is sponsored by one of SHOT’s special interest groups.

Submission Instructions:
1. Materials should be sent as a single text attachment to an e-mail message to the Program Committee Chair, Asif Siddiqi at shot.tacoma2010@gmail.com

2. Proposals for complete sessions as well as individual papers should be submitted in one file.
3. Please adhere to the 600-word limit for each paper. Use no unusual fonts or special formatting, and save your attachment either as a Microsoft Word document (.doc or .docx) or as a Rich Text Format (.rtf) file. Nearly all word processing programs, including those used on Apple computers can save text in the Rich Text Format. Do not use Adobe Acrobat (pdf).
4. Name your attachment with your last name and the word ‘proposal’, e.g. ‘Smith_proposal.doc’.
5. A session organizer should also deliver a description of the overall session.  If you are organizing a session and proposing a paper in that session, you will be delivering both an “abstract” and “proposal”, plus your c.v.
6. If you are proposing a non-traditional session you may indicate that in the “abstract.” These also require a curriculum vitae.

General information:
While SHOT rules exclude multiple submissions (i.e., submitting more than one individual paper proposal, or proposing both an individual paper and a paper as part of a session), scholars may both propose a paper and serve as a commentator or session chair.

Generally speaking, the Program Committee discourages scholars from presenting papers at two consecutive meetings held in North America.  Exceptions can be made for scholars traveling from overseas.  Individuals are always welcome to serve as chairs and commentators and are encouraged to let the Program Committee know if they are available.

For more information about the Society for the History of Technology and our annual meeting, please see the SHOT webpage:

http://www.historyoftechnology.org/

For questions, please contact SHOT Secretary Bernie Carlson at shotsecy@virginia.edu.

Jane Carlson
Admin Assistant to Exec. Sec
Society for the History of Technology
Charlottesville, VA
(434) 975 2190 (fax)
(434) 987 6230 (cell)

Reusing the Industrial Past
Tampere, Finland
10–15 August 2010

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.

Deadline for Proposals is 16 November 2009.

Conference language: English

As a joint conference, the primary theme ‘Reusing the Industrial Past’ is intended to be a broad idea covering various approaches. Clearly, the industrial past is reused whenever old industrial installations are renovated or adapted. There have been many attempts to preserve the most significant aspects of old industrial areas after productive activity has ceased, by giving them a new viable function. However, the idea of reusing the industrial past need not stop there.

Old industrial and handicraft technology can also be reintroduced and reused in manufacturing various products or in explaining how they work to the public in exhibitions. Various kinds of ‘retroproducts’ are now in vogue, while people are looking for alternative technological solutions for plastics, electronics, concrete, artificial chemicals and fertilisers. Knowledge of old technologies is in demand. What technologies do historians suggest could be reused?

Manufacturing still has a strong impact on culture, working habits and ethics. The industrial past and obsolete technologies are also present in the way people think and use their language. For instance, “put the small pulley on” continues to be used as a metaphor in British English for speeding up. Similar examples can be found in other languages as well. For social historians, it would be interesting to discover practices and ethics of factory work that continue to be used in offices and shops today. The culture of work seems to change more slowly than work itself and technology in use.

The conference programme will include scientific and plenary sessions, poster presentations, business meetings and general assemblies of the organising societies, excursions, social events such as receptions and the banquet, and pre- and post-conference trips. The premises of the University of Tampere and the historical industrial buildings on the in the City Centrum will serve as
conference venues.

Download Call for Papers as PDF here: http://www.tampere.fi/industrialpast2010/doc/cfp_tampere_2010.pdf

The conference website at http://www.tampere.fi/industrialpast2010/ also has more details on the program, keynote speakers, travel, and accommodation.

Conference Subthemes
In order to make the conference theme as strong as possible, the programme committees have decided that all papers must fit within one of the following sub-themes (which must be indicated on the proposal). The bullet points under the subthemes are simply examples of topics that fit into the each subtheme. Papers need not deal specifically with a particular bullet point:

1. Nuts and Bolts Keep on Rolling
- Deindustrialisation and restructuring: Threat or opportunity?
- Stubborn technologies: Resistance to change
- Technological outcasts: Products and solutions rejected by consumers
- Technological comeback: Retroproducts and retrodesign
- Reinventing the industrial past: Innovations that never existed
- Legitimising competitiveness: Political and economic actions to support
technological image and performance
- Processes in change: Technology of textile manufacturing and papermaking

2. Artefacts and Experiences in Transition: Challenges for Industrial Heritage
- Canonisation of the symbols of industrial revolutions
- Living and dead industrial landscapes
- Regeneration through heritage
- Reuse of industrial environments
- Societal aims for the conservation of industrial heritage
- Adapting technology and reforming industrial heritage
- Contested pasts – the heritage of science, technology and industry in
geo-political conflict

3. Social History of Industry
- Reinterpretations of the First Industrial Revolution
- Social history of factory work
- Identities of blue-collar workers and white-collar workers in industry
- People and machines in industrial history
- Masculine machines and female labour: Gender in industry
- Local experiences: changes in work, vanishing employment, emerging opportunities
- Twins astray? Labour history and industrial history
- Serfs of looms and slaves of mobile phones

4. Cultural History of Technology
- Emotions and machines: Adored and hated technologies
- Technological optimism and pessimism
- Company cultures: Breaks and continuity
- Ethics of factory work
- Workers’ culture: Legitimising hard work
- Long shadow of history: Influence of the industrial past in our present way of life
- Fossilisation of factory rhetoric in language
- Exploiting images of the industrial past

5. Environmental History of Industrialisation and Deindustrialisation
- Harnessing nature: Environmental exploitation
- Interdependence of energy and mechanisation in the smoke-stack industries
- Smoke-stack industry as an environmental burden
- Environmental heritage of the First Industrial Revolution
- Environmental consequences of deindustrialisation

6. Museums and Industrial Memories
- Collection policies for the industrial era
- New perspectives for exhibiting industrial heritage
- Challenges for museums in the postindustrial society
- Museum architecture in old factories

7. Posters

8. Others / Special issues
- Open subtheme to any session or paper proposals related to the history of technology and/or industrial past

Proposal Guidelines
We urge contributors to consider organizing a full session of three or more papers. Individual paper submissions will, of course, be considered.

Note: Membership of ICOHTEC, TICCIH, or WORKLAB is not required to participate in the conference.

INDIVIDUAL PAPER proposals must include: (1) a 250-word (maximum) abstract in English; and (2) a one-page CV. Abstracts should include the author’s name and email address, a short descriptive title, a concise statement of the thesis, a brief discussion of the sources, and a summary of the major conclusions. Please indicate one of the specified subthemes for your paper.

In preparing your paper, remember that presentations are not full-length articles. You will have no more than 15-20 minutes to speak – depending on the number of speakers in your session – which is roughly equivalent to 6-8 double-spaced typed pages. Contributors are encouraged to submit full-length versions of their papers after the conference for consideration by ICOHTEC’s journal ICON or TICCIH’s journal Industrial Patrimony. For more suggestions about preparing your conference presentation, please consult the guidelines at the conference web site: http://www.tampere.fi/industrialpast2010.

SESSION proposals must include: (1) an abstract of the session (250 words maximum), listing the proposed papers and a session chairperson; (2) abstracts for each paper (250 words maximum); (3) a one-page CV for each contributor and chairperson. Sessions should consist of three or four speakers and may include several sections of three to four speakers each, which might extend over more than one day. We also encourage “untraditional” session or roundtable proposals.

POSTER proposals must include (1) a 250-word (maximum) abstract in English; and (2) a one-page CV. Abstracts should include the author’s name and email address, a short descriptive title, a concise statement of the thesis, a brief discussion of the sources, and a summary of the major conclusions. Please indicate one of the specified subthemes for your poster.

Proposal submissions
The final deadline for all submissions is Monday 16 November 2009.

Please submit proposals for papers and sessions via the website of the Tampere conference at https://secure.tavicon.fi/abstracts/index.php?conference_id=16

If web access is unavailable, proposals may be sent by fax to ICOHTEC 2010 at: +358 (0) 3 5656 6808. Otherwise they may be sent via regular mail or courier, postmarked not later than 9 November 2009. The mail address is:

ICOHTEC 2010
c/o Museum Centre Vapriikki
PL 487
Alaverstaanraitti 5
33101 Tampere
Finland

All questions about the programme proposals should be submitted to the local organizing committee, icohtecticcih2010@tampere.fi. Queries about the conference venue should be made to the same address.

Further information on host organisations
ICOHTEC: http://www.icohtec.org/
TICCIH: http://www.mnactec.cat/ticcih/
WORKLAB: http://www.worklab.dk/
University of Tampere: http://www.uta.fi/english/
Museum Centre Vapriikki: http://www.tampere.fi/english/vapriikki/index.html
The Finnish Labour Museum Werstas: http://www.tyovaenmuseo.fi/?q=en

Download pdf file (5.8 MB)

Canadian industrial landscape photographer Edward Burtynsky’s newest project, “Oil” has recently opened at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, along with several related gallery shows in Amsterdam, New York, and Toronto. The Corcoran exhibit is on through mid-December, after which it will travel through 2011.

I was privileged to work as a Research Associate on this project for the past three years, and attended the exhibit opening in early October: the exhibit is fantastically curated and is a must-see for all envirotechies. It should be required viewing for just about everyone everywhere. The book (tome) that accompanies the exhibit is also worth examining if you can get hold of it. Dr. William Rees (University of British Columbia, and coiner of the term “ecological footprint”) has presented a thought-provoking essay on our relationship with oil, and Michael Mitchell (Canadian author and filmmaker) has supplied some great essays on the historical and social elements of the various “chapters” in Burtynsky’s project.

For those of you unable to make the trek to see the exhibit, you can find many of the images on Burtynsky’s site under “Galleries” or by checking the second Corcoran link listed below.

http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/

http://www.corcoran.org/burtynsky/index.php – this link will give you the exhibit images: http://www.corcoran.org/exhibitions/press%5Fburtynsky/

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2009/10/03/burtynsky-oil-corcoran.html