History of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Elena Aronova, assistant professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will present and discuss chapter 3, "Nikolai Vavilov, Genogeography, and History’s Past Future," as well as the introduction, from her new book, Scientific History: Experiments in History and Politics from the Bolshevik Revolution to the End of the Cold War (University of Chicago Press, 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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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." 

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"

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."