CFP: Workshop for the History of the Environment, Agriculture, Technology, and Science (WHEATS), March 15-17, 2013

The Doctoral Program in History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to be hosting WHEATS in 2013. Now in its ninth year, the Workshop for the History of Environment, Agriculture, Technology, and Science (WHEATS) brings together graduate students studying topics contained under this heading. The Workshop will take place March 15 through March 17, 2013. WHEATS welcomes submissions from any discipline that engages with these fields.

Pre-circulated papers of 25-30 pages will be discussed by participants and senior scholars in roundtable format. This arrangement is well-suited for works in progress, and the workshop will have sessions on professional development as well as opportunities to meet and interact with members of a larger Philadelphia area scholarly community working in relevant fields.

Potential participants should visit the website linked below to submit a brief abstract (200 words) and a short curriculum vitae by August 1, 2012. Accepted papers will be due February 1, 2013.

To submit a proposal, please visit:
https://sites.sas.upenn.edu/wheats/pages/call-proposals

For further information, visit:
http://sites.sas.upenn.edu/wheats

Contact the organizers at:
wheats2013 at sas.upenn.edu

Envirotech Travel Grant Application – SHOT 2012

The Envirotech Interest Group is pleased to announce a $400 travel grant for the upcoming SHOT conference in Copenhagen. Eligibility for the award is limited to those presenting a paper addressing the interrelated histories of environment and technology at the 2012 SHOT meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark (October 4–7, 2012). Those who have completed their Ph.D. more than three years prior and are fully employed are not eligible. Independent scholars are eligible regardless of the date the Ph.D. was received. This application must be received by June 30, 2012. The winner will receive a check for $400 at the Envirotech meeting during the conference.

Applicants should complete this form (EnvirotechTravelGrantAppplication_SHOT2012), and email it along with their C.V. to TravelGrant@envirotechweb.org. Any questions should be addressed to Chair, Envirotech Travel Grant, and submitted by email to TravelGrant@envirotechweb.org.

CFP: Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), 2012 Annual Meeting, 4-7 October, Copenhagen, Denmark

The Society for the History of Technology will hold its annual meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark from 4-7 October at the Copenhagen Business School. The Program Committee invites paper and panel proposals on any topic in the history of technology, broadly defined. The Committee welcomes proposals for individual papers or sessions, as well as works-in-progress from researchers at all levels (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 particularly encouraged. We especially encourage proposals from non-Western and Eastern-European scholars. Since this is a non-North American meeting, the Program Committee will permit scholars who presented at the 2011 Cleveland meeting to give papers in Copenhagen. It is SHOT’s policy to relax its rule about not presenting papers at two consecutive meetings in order to attract as many people as possible to meetings outside of North America.

For the 2012 meeting the Program Committee continues to welcome unconventional sessions; that is, session formats that diverge 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.

THE DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS IS 31 MARCH 2012.

DETAILED SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS WILL BE AVAILABLE BY 13 FEBRUARY 2012.

While paper and session proposals on all topics are welcome, the Program Committee is especially interested in proposals that engage the following themes:

SHOT 2012 SPECIAL THEMES
I. Technology, sustainability, and environment.
SHOT has a long history of analyzing how technologies have interfered with or shaped nature and our social or cultural environments. The search for sustainable technology solutions has recently become a main preoccupation of engineers, designers and tinkerers all over the world and is high on the political agenda too. Possible themes to address are:
– Questions of scale: onsite, small- and community-scale technology as challenges for large-scale and centralized models of technology design, both in rural and new urban environments
– Smart design: ecodesign and sustainable industrial or product design as evidence of smart solutions for an accountable handling of technology
– Natural infrastructures: infrastructures as “natural” environments and nature (air, water, soil) as co-producers of large-scale infrastructures
– More with less: new technologies and the search for efficiency in energy consumption or technologies of power saving in housing, transport, and communication

II. Technology, East-West relations, and the Cold War.
During the Cold War, Europe was one of the central laboratories for experimentation with ideological and political regimes, which deeply affected traditional paths of knowledge and technology transfer in Europe. While the history of the Cold War has mainly been told as a history of discontinuity and fragmentation, we would especially welcome papers and sections dealing with examples of successful co-operation or “hidden continuities” in inter-European technology transfer during the 20th century. General areas to be explored are:
– Changing times: continuities and discontinuities in the transfers of knowledge and technology between Eastern and Western Europe and the rest of the world from the mid-19th century to the present
– Negotiating identities: spaces and places of co-operation or confrontation before, during, and after the Cold War
– Blurred boundaries: spill-over effects and holes in the Iron Curtain
– Trading zone: Europe as symbolic battlefield and diplomatic playground for world hegemony
– Chilling effects: Technologies at war & wartime technology
– Secret stories: technologies of intelligence and espionage and their staging in popular media (comics, films, magazines, television & radio)
– Competing Modernities: the uses of technology in a variety of economic development and modernization schemes

Evaluation Criteria, General Ground Rules, and Specific Requirements for Individual Paper Proposals and Session Proposals
The Program Committee’s highest priority in evaluating paper and panel proposals is scholarly excellence.

General ground rules: 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). However, scholars may both propose a paper and serve as a commentator or session chair.

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 (300 words max)
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 note that in general we discourage panels with more than three papers.
**Please indicate if a proposal is sponsored by one of SHOT’s special interest groups.

DETAILED SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS WILL BE AVAILABLE BY 13 FEBRUARY 2012.

Further Information:
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 general questions about the Society for the History of Technology, please contact SHOT Secretary Bernie Carlson at SHOTSecy@virginia.edu.

Call For Proposals: Workshop for the History of the Environment, Agriculture, Technology, and Science (WHEATS) 2011

The Doctoral Program in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HASTS) at MIT is pleased to be hosting WHEATS in 2011. Now in its eighth year, the Workshop for the History of Environment, Agriculture, Technology, and Science (WHEATS) brings together graduate students studying topics contained under this heading. The Workshop will take place September 30-October 2, 2011. WHEATS welcomes submissions from any discipline with interests in these fields. Pre-circulated papers of 25-30 pages will be discussed by participants and senior scholars in roundtable format. This arrangement is well-suited for works in progress, and the workshop will have sessions on professional development as well as opportunities to meet and engage with members of the broader HASTS community at MIT.

Funding to defray travel costs will be provided, as will most meals. The option to stay with local students will be available, should participants wish to do so. Potential participants should submit a one-page abstract (200 words) and a short curriculum vitae by April 30, 2011. Applicants should note their year of graduate study or Ph.D. completion date. Accepted papers will be due August 31, 2011.

For further information, contact:

wheats-organizers@mit.edu

Or visit:

wheats.mit.edu

Send submissions to:

wheats-submissions@mit.edu

CFP: Quality versus Quantity: Competing Visions of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Life

The Agricultural History Society Annual Conference Springfield, Illinois, June 15-18, 2011

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. Continue reading

CFP: Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) 2010

2010 Annual Meeting – Tacoma, Washington

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: Continue reading

CFP Reminder: Reusing the Industrial Past – ICOHTEC/TICCIH Joint Conference 2010

ICOHTEC & TICCIH Joint Conference 2010

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.
Continue reading

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.

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