History of Earth and Environmental Sciences

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Participants at Consortium activities will treat each other with respect and consideration to create a collegial, inclusive, and professional environment that is free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.

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Upcoming Meetings

There are no currently scheduled upcoming events.


Past Meetings

  • March 30, 2021

    Daniel Vandersommers, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Dayton, will present on the introduction and a selected chapter from his book manuscript: "Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo: Stories of Science, Culturre, and Environment." The manuscript is under contract with University Press of Kansas.


  • February 23, 2021

    Our next speaker will be David Munns, Associate Professor at John Jay College of the City University of New York. We will discuss the Introduction and Chapter 1 from his forthcoming book: David P.D. Munns and Käriin Nickelsen, "Far Beyond the Mood: A History of Life Support Systems in the Space Age." Pittsburgh: Unversity of Pittsburgh Press, 2021. 


  • January 26, 2021

    We will discuss selections from two related and recently or soon-to-be published books:
     
    Jacob Darwin Hamblin, The Wretched Atom: America's Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology (New York: Oxford Universty Press, 2021), introduction and chapter 5. (PDF is available in the restricted login area for group members)
     
    Christine Keiner, Deep Cut: Science, Power, and the Unbuilt Interoceanic Canal (Athens: University of Georgia Press Press, 2020), introduction and chapter 4. Please see the following open access link to read the book: https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780820358635

    The two authors will open the discussion with comments on each other's books.


  • November 24, 2020

    We will discuss selections from two related and recently published books in the history of food, agriculture, environment, and science:
     
    Benjamin R. Cohen, Pure Adulteration: Cheating on Nature in the Age of Manufactured Food (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020), prologue and chapter 4.
     
    Stuart McCook, Coffee Is Not Forever: A Global History of the Coffee Leaf Rust (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2019), introduction and chapter 5.
     
    The two authors will open the discussion with comments on each other's books.


  • October 27, 2020

    We will discuss a new article that was awarded the Rainger prize (for early career scholarship in the earth and environmental sciences) at the recent History of Science Society virtual meeting:
     
    Emily M. Kern, "Archaeology Enters the 'Atomic Age': A Short History of Radiocarbon, 1946-1960," British Journal for the History of Science 53, no. 2 (June 2020).
     
    During our gathering, we will also hold the annual meeting of the Earth and Environment Forum of the History of Science Society, which has the same topical purview as this working group.


  • September 29, 2020

    Group Building and Extended Introductions. For our opening meeting of this academic year, instead of a typical workshop or presentation, we will try something new, to help everyone become better acquainted with one another: we invite all participants who attend to give an extended introduction of themselves along with a brief (1-2 minute) elevator pitch of a research project they are working on, followed by a question or two after each one from someone else who is there.


  • April 28, 2020

    We will discuss a chapter in progress by Aaron Thomas of Mississippi State University drawn from his dissertation titled "Controlling Christmas: An Environmental History of Natural and Artificial Christmas Trees." 


  • March 31, 2020

    We will discuss a chapter in progress by Claire Perrott (University of Arizona):
    "The Cultural and Environmental History of Parícutin in Mexico: Volcano as  Science, 1943-1952"


  • February 5, 2020

    We will discuss an article in progress by Anna Graber (University of Minnesota), "Underground Evangelizing: Theodicy and Orthodoxy in Mikhail Lomonosov's Theory of Earth."


  • December 4, 2019

    We will discuss a chapter in progress by Mary Richie McGuire (Virginia Tech), "'Reconstructing the Past, Constructing the Present': Doing Bioconstitutional History," which is from her project “Translating Natural Knowledge in the Age of Revolution: Tobacco, Science, and the Rights of Man and Nature in the Art of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1795 to 1820."


Group Conveners

  • frdavis's picture

    Frederick Davis

    Frederick Rowe Davis is Professor and Head and the R. Mark Lubbers Chair in the History of Science in the Department of History at Purdue University. His research interests lie at the intersection of the history of earth and environmental sciences, environmental health, and environmental history. He recently published Banned: A History of Pesticides and the Science of Toxicology (Yale 2014).

     

  • MarkHersey's picture

    Mark Hersey

    Mark Hersey is Associate Professor of History at Mississippi State University and co-editor of Environmental History. His research interests lie in the fields of environmental, rural, and agricultural history, with a particular emphasis on the American South, especially Alabama and Mississippi. He is the author of My Work Is That Of Conservation: An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver.

     

  • jvetter's picture

    Jeremy Vetter

    Jeremy Vetter is Associate Professor of History at the University of Arizona. His research is at the intersection of environmental history and the history of science and technology in the American West. He is the author of Field Life: Science in the American West during the Railroad Era (Pittsburgh, 2016).

     

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