Lyman Briggs College (LBC), an undergraduate, residential, liberal arts, science program at Michigan State University, invites applications for a tenure-system assistant professorship in HPS of Computing, Networks, or Big Data, to be jointly appointed between the LBC and one of the following units: James Madison College or the Department of Geography. The candidate must have a background in the history, philosophy, or sociology of science, technology, environment, or medicine, and studies computational or network sciences as a subject illustrating core HPS topics such as: expertise and trust; methods of data collection and analysis; or, participatory GIS. We also welcome candidates who use natural language processing or social network methods for studying collaborative research and scientific production. The successful candidate will have an excellent record of teaching and research accomplishments and be committed to undergraduate education. Requirements include a Ph.D (or be scheduled to have a conferred Ph.D. by August 15, 2015) with expertise in the HPS of science, technology, environment, or medicine. Interests in non-western science and/or diversity and inclusion as related to science would be especially welcomed. Duties include teaching three HPS courses in LBC and one course in the joint appointment department, and maintaining an active research program. Salary and start-up support is competitive and commensurate with experience.
16th International Conference of Historical Geographers (ICHG)
Dates: Sunday 5 to Friday 10 July 2015
Location: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), London, SW7 2AR
Website: www.ichg2015.org
Categories
News: Fleming in the Toronto Star
ICHM’s Professor Jim Fleming featured in this article about geoengineering in the Toronto Star.
Categories
Call for Papers: Emotional Geographies
We seek proposals for sessions that will explore the multiplicity of spaces and places that produce and are produced by emotional and affective life. We welcome an inclusive range of theoretical and methodological engagements with emotion as a social, cultural and spatial phenomenon. Themes may include, but are not limited to:
migration, landscapes, development, nature/cultures, governance, arts, aging, embodiment, children and youth, cities, animal studies, wellbeing, memory, non-human actors, and methods. Call for session proposals will close on 14 November.
http://emotionalgeographiescon
‘Ruling Climate’ aims to explore the relationship between cultural perceptions of the environment and practical attempts at environmental regulation and change between 1500 and 1800. The conference will be held at the University of Warwick on 16 May 2015. Submit proposals by 10 December 2014.
In the early modern period, the environment became a privileged locus of scientific debate and governmental action. Discussions spread across Europe and its colonies as to how to improve the land, and possibly even the climate of a given place; practical efforts were made to enhance the healthiness, productivity, and overall pleasantness of the environment (both natural and built) in the belief that environmental ‘improvement’, as it was then called, would immediately bring about human improvement—a larger, healthier, happier population that would make the country more powerful. Such debates and practices were driven by a persistent belief in the influence that landscape, weather and climate would exert on human beings, both at a physical and a spiritual level. ‘Climate theories’—first advanced by ancient authors such as Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle and Ptolemy—remained a popular explanatory paradigm throughout the early modern period, actively dictating trends in environmental management, social governance, and the administration of both private and public health, as well as shaping colonial attitudes to foreign climates and peoples. Yet the period between 1500 and 1800 was also one of substantial intellectual, scientific, and technological change in which new conceptions of nature, climate, and weather were developed. The human footprint on Earth grew heavier, whilst the first moves towards conservation and sustainable resource management were made. Finally, it was in this period that changing climatic patterns were observed for the first time, partly because of a cooling trend that reached its peak around 1650 (the so-called Little Ice Age).
‘Ruling Climate’ aims to investigate this complex of problems in an interdisciplinary fashion, focusing particularly on three central research questions:
- continuities and discrepancies between ancient and early modern climate theories: how were classical theories of climatic influence received and adjusted to new contexts in the early modern period? How did the understanding of climate itself change over time?
- climate theories and ‘eco-governmentality’: how did climatological ideas inspire and sustain governmental efforts of various kinds, at both a domestic and a colonial level? e.g. the displacement of populations, environmental planning in connection to public health issues, engineering works, choice of specific sites for new colonies, etc.
- governed with climate / governing climate: what is the relationship between theories of climatic influence and the development of strategies to cope with / modify climate and the environment? e.g. through agricultural improvement, increased human settlement, draining of bogs and marshes, deforestation, etc.
We welcome abstracts for 20-minute papers from PhD students and scholars at any stage in their career. Papers from all disciplinary backgrounds are welcome, including environmental history, colonial history, intellectual history, historical geography, history of philosophy, history of medicine, history of science, history of political thought, history of technology. Please send a 200-word abstract (including your name, institutional affiliation and a provisional title) and a one-page CV to rulingclimate@gmail.com. Successful speakers will be notified in January 2015.
As climate change becomes arguably the most pressing issue of our time, with evolving implications for societies in every cultural context, we seek to enhance our understanding of the ways in which culture and climate intersect with and animate one another. Cultural responses to and representations of climate are particularly compelling at a time when catastrophic weather events are becoming more commonly manifest and are inspiring a wide array of cultural and interpretive responses. Paying particular attention to the cultural implications of climate and to cultural, political, and societal responses to climate change, this conference explores how humanities-based scholarship can be brought to bear upon the evolving reality of climate change. Conference events include keynote talks given by internationally renowned climate and culture scholars, traditional academic papers and presentations, and a variety of interdisciplinary and multimedia performances. We thus invite submissions from scholars from across the humanities, broadly defined, who are dealing with any aspect of climate and climate change in a cultural context. The conference is hosted by the University of Prince Edward Island, home of the Atlantic Climate Lab and the Institute of Island Studies. Prince Edward Island is known for its breathtaking natural beauty and charm, thus making it an especially apt location for a conference on climate change and its human implications. Please submit abstracts of 250-300 words to jmcintyre@upei.ca by January 5, 2015. For more on the conference, visit its website or its Facebook page.
SEARCH Project, University of Melbourne (Australia), won the 2014 University of New South Wales Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research for their 1,000 year climate history: http://australianmuseum.net.
London, 5-10 July 2015
“Towards policy-driven research in historical climatology”
Convened by George Adamson (King’s College London)
The interrelationship climate and society during the past 500-1000 years is a fast-growing area of research within historical climatology. Substantial work has been undertaken to uncover climatic agency in the Little Ice Age, on the role of climate in the collapse of major societies such as the Classic Maya, and on adaptation strategies within pre-industrial communities. Yet historical approaches have thus-far largely failed to engage with the policy agenda. This is partly due to an epistemological divide that exists between practitioners of historical climatology and the development research community that largely dictate adaptation paradigms.
This session addresses studies that have attempted to cross this divide and develop historical climate-society research with an explicit contemporary relevance and/or policy focus. Papers may address (but are not limited to) the following areas:
· Empirical data on historical major climate events for the preparation of disaster management plans (floods, droughts, cyclones, etc.),
· The use of historical data to challenge dominant narratives regarding climate change (e.g. the severity or regularity of extreme events) or to facilitate alternative policy responses,
· New or novel approaches to the study of historical climate-society interactions that move beyond analogy methodologies,
· Studies that seek to reveal a deeper understanding of adaptive practices through historical analysis and the study of cultural memory.
Interested participants should send an abstract of no more than 200 words to Dr George Adamson (King’s College London) before 1st September 2014. Email:george.adamson@kcl.ac.uk.
Further details of the International Conference of Historical Geographers 2015 are available at:
This fall, the University of Oregon is hosting the 3rd Annual Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples Conference, scheduled for December 2-3, 2014 in Eugene, Oregon. The University will welcome two distinguished keynote speakers to the conference: Dr. Myrna Cunningham Kain and Patricia Cochran. Dr. Cunningham Kain is Miskitu from Nicaragua, and is an internationally renowned advocate for Indigenous peoples’ rights and women’s rights who has served Indigenous peoples in countless fashions, most recently as chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2011-2013). Patricia Cochran is currently Executive Director of the Alaska Native Science Commission (ANSC), an organization that works to create links and collaborations among scientists, researchers and Alaska Native communities. The 2nd day of the conference will feature a series of student panels exploring climate change and indigenous peoples. We have funding to bring three students from U.S. tribal colleges (or indigenous undergraduate students at other universities in the U.S.) who are researching issues related to climate change and indigenous peoples. The students invited to join us at this event will present during one of the panel sessions and participate in the conference. Please submit nominations for undergraduate students, or students can apply themselves, if conducting research on climate change and indigenous peoples. Nominations or applications should include a brief bio of the student, as well as an abstract of their research on climate change and indigenous peoples that they would plan to present during the conference. Nominations should be sent to Mark Carey at carey ‘at’ uoregon.edu by September 1st. If a student is accepted to attend the conference, the UO will provide funding for travel and lodging. More information about the conference is included below, and you can also visit: http://ccip.uoregon.
The International Research Institute on Humanity and Nature (??????????), a leading science and environmental policy research institute, is engaged in a series of explorations of long-term human-nature interactions associated with climatalogical and environmental change in Japan, the “Societal Adaptation to Climate Change: Integrating Palaeoclimatological Data with Historical and Archaeological Evidences” program (project web sites noted below).
Part of the institute’s research funding is thus available to support a broad array of disciplinary studies related to this theme. This includes consideration of comparative perspectives, theory and method.
Competition for awards for the next Japanese fiscal year (April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016) is now open. Information on research funding, application procedures and deadlines can be found at:
English: http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/rihn_
Japanese: http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/
Project descriptions can be found at:
Japanese: http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/rihn/
English: http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/rihn_