Call is Open: New M.Phil in Environmental History
- Published in News
Trinity College Dublin is launching a new M.Phil in Environmental History next year. Admissions for students who wish to start in September 2020 are already open.
News
Call for thematic issue: HoST – Journal of History of Science and Technology (2021)
- Published in News
HoST- Journal of History of Science and Technologyis an open access, on-line peer-reviewed international journal devoted to the History of Science and Technology, published in English by a group of Portuguese research institutions and De Gruyter/Sciendo (https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/host/host-overview.xml). HoST encourages submissions of original historical research exploring the cultural, social and political dimensions of science, technology, and medicine (STM), both from a local and a global perspective. Past thematic issues have dealt with topics as diverse as circulation, communication of science and the relation between science and politics. Future issues might deal with both established and emerging areas of scholarship.
The editors of HoST are looking for proposals for two thematic issues to be published in 2021 (HoST volume 15, issues 1 and 2). Each thematic issue should be prepared by a guest editor and include four research papers.
Proposals should include the following items:
1. An abstract describing the topic for the thematic issue and its significance (500 words);
2. A list of the contributors along with the titles and abstracts (300 words) of the four research papers;
3. Brief CVs (300 words) of the guest editor(s) and authors;
The guest editor(s) and the contributors must be prepared to meet the HoST publication schedule:
· Abstract and titles submission: 29 November, 2019
· Submission of complete research papers:
o 29 May, 2020 (Issue 1)
o 30 November, 2020 (Issue 2)
· Publication:
o June, 2021 (Issue 1)
o December, 2021 (Issue 2)
Proposals will be subject to approval by the Editorial Board and the outcome will be known to the authors by December 2019.
Submissions should be sent as an e-mail attachment (preferably in one single .doc, .docx, .rtf or .odt file), to the editor: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Until October 15th : Call for Applications : Anthropocene Campus Lisboa: Parallax : January 6-11, 2020
- Published in News
We welcome applications for the Anthropocene Campus Lisboa: Parallax (ACL: Parallax), taking place at Culturgest in Lisbon, Portugal, between 6 and 11 January 2020. The Campus is organised by the Portuguese research center CIUHCT and is part of the Anthropocene Curriculum initiated by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), which has generated two Anthropocene Campus in Berlin (2014, 2016) and several satellite events worldwide.
Like previous editions, the Anthropocene Campus Lisboa: Parallax is an interdisciplinary event in which participants will be working in workshop-like seminars hosted by conveners. We welcome the attendance of students from higher education institutions, scholars from the sciences and the humanities, artists, and activists. We encourage participants to engage in sketching possible collaborative outputs in several formats (publications, videos, artworks, research projects, etc.) that will circulate in different fora.
Core topics in the discussion on environmental crisis will be approached through different perspectives: Inequality, Turistification, Big Data, Hacking, Animal Care, Popular Dwelling, Sonic ecology, Technological resistance, etc.
According to its dictionary definition, parallax is «the effect by which the position of an object seems to change when it is looked at from different positions.» The challenges of the Anthropocene demand research actions that cut across disciplinary barriers to create new modes of making and sharing knowledge. But while a transdisciplinary approach is necessary, we should also restrain from aiming at an integrated framework. On the contrary, new actionable insights may spark only from an open, non-hierarchical and even conflictual exchange, in which multiple, and not necessarily compatible, perspectives on reality are at stake. Taking the parallax effect seriously means not to dismiss it as an error or as “apparent” movement. The movement is there, and we must move to follow it.
The Anthropocene Campus Lisboa: Parallax uses the parallax effect to engage with issues of environmental and social transformation and collapses highlighted by the term Anthropocene. To that end, we propose to organize a discussion around two intertwined and complementary but often divorced frameworks: on the one hand, systems of social and technological organization, which determine the actions that are possible within a given historical context; and on the other, perception and narrative, which determine our limits for understanding and imagining. Power and discourse are negotiated, challenged, and perpetuated through both means, defining the conditions for living in contemporaneity.
Participants will participate in one seminar from each of the two overarching framework: Systems of Social and Technological Organization and Perception and Narrative. To apply please use exclusively the online application form in https://parallax.ciuhct.org/call-for-applications. No other applications will be considered. Applicants must submit a short CV and motivation letter stating their interest in the Anthropocene Campus Lisboa. The Registration Fee is €150, paid upon acceptance of the application (the fee includes coffee-breaks and lunch for the 6 days of the Campus); information on the payment will be available soon.
Deadline for application: October 15, 2019.
Doctoral Candidate Position, "Environing Infrastructure: Communities, Ecologies and China’s “Green” Development in Contemporary Southeast Asia"
- Published in News
Volkswagen Foundation “Freigeist” Fellowship Research Group
Environing Infrastructure: Communities, Ecologies and China’s “Green” Development in Contemporary Southeast Asia
1 Doctoral Candidate Position (4 years)
The Volkswagen Foundation “Freigeist” Fellowship Research Group Environing Infrastructure: Communities, Ecologies and China’s “Green” Development in Contemporary Southeast Asia invites applications for one funded position for a doctoral candidate (salary group TV-L 13, 75%, 4 years, additional funds for field research available). Deadline is January 15, 2020.
The doctoral candidate will research the environmental aspects of Chinese investments in Southeast Asia from an ethnographic perspective, carrying out one year of ethnographic field research in the region. Applicants should speak at least one local language. A Master’s degree in the social sciences is required, and preference will be given to applicants with a background in social anthropology, human geography, and/or environmental studies. The successful applicant will also be expected to actively contribute to project team activities, together with the PI and the postdoc, such as reading groups and the organization of workshops. Knowledge of Mandarin is a plus.
Disciplinarily grounded in social anthropology, with methodological and analytical inputs from the environmental humanities, the research group investigates the environmental aspects of Chinese infrastructure investments in Southeast Asia from an ethnographic and comparative perspective. China’s global investments abroad are increasingly framed within the language of “green” development, a rhetoric that sits uneasily with China’s own multiple, and often conspicuous, environmental crises domestically. Scholarship on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has thus far focused on its geopolitical and fiscal aspects, while research on the ecologies of Chinese building ambition has investigated the environmental impacts of individual projects. In bridging these, this project will contribute nuanced understandings of how environmental issues surrounding Chinese infrastructure are negotiated between Chinese planners and engineers, officials, environmental NGOs and local communities. Each member of the research team will focus on one particular case study, but the project includes periods of collaborative research to foster connections, consistency and comparison.
Potential candidates are invited to suggest a specific research focus and field site within the context of Chinese investments in infrastructure in Southeast Asia. Examples of potential case studies for the doctoral candidate are the following:
- The Bangkok-Nakhon Ratchasima railway in Thailand
- The Laos section of the Kunming-Singapore Railway Project
- The Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone in Cambodia
- The Hai Phong Port in Vietnam
The Environing Infrastructure Research Group is based at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC), a joint initiative of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Deutsches Museum. The RCC is the largest Center for Advanced Study in the environmental humanities worldwide and hosts numerous international scholars working on environmental topics. The doctoral candidate will be based in Munich and affiliated with the Doctoral Program in Environment and Society at the RCC. The doctoral candidate will engage with and profit from the RCC’s lively research community, its regular Colloquia series and workshops, as well as interactions with scholars working across the environmental humanities.
Please submit your application by 15 January 2020 as a single PDF to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The following documents are required:
- An academic curriculum vitae (including publications and awards, if applicable);
- A letter of motivation in which you summarise a) your experience and interests; b) why you are applying for this position; and c) why you are the best candidate (2 pages max);
- A project outline detailing the proposed regional case study as well as a sketch of how you would address the topic theoretically and methodologically (2 pages max);
- Your Master’s thesis (if in a language other than English, please provide a table of contents and a summary of max. 5 pages in English)
- The names and contact information of two academic referees (NB: these will only be contacted if you are shortlisted).
We welcome candidates with experience outside of academia (e.g. working at NGOs, think tanks or in industry) and encourage applicants from Southeast Asia.
Interviews for the position will be held in February 2020. The position will begin in September 2020 at the earliest.
For applicants unfamiliar with the German academic system, a TV-L 13 75% position provides a liveable salary, full tuition, and benefits including full healthcare, pension contributions, six weeks paid vacation, and parental leave (if required). As the candidate will be a state employee, they are required to have German health insurance and to make contributions to the German tax and social welfare system. Please note that knowledge of German language is not required for this position. Working hours are flexible, and the RCC offers a family-friendly working environment. The RCC can also assist, if necessary, with work permits and visas. We especially seek applications from qualified individuals with disabilities and welcome applications from women.
For further information and questions regarding the position, please contact the PI Dr. Alessandro Rippa (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
CfP.: International Water History Conference (Delft University of Technology, 24-26 June 2020)
- Published in News
Start date Wednesday 24 June 2020 - 10:00
End date Friday 26 June 2020 - 17:00
Location Delft University of Technology, exact location tbd
The 2020 Delft Water History meeting in the Netherlands will be a unique opportunity to exchange existing and develop new insights on the history of one of our most precious resources. The conference is hosted by the Water Resources Group at Delft University of Technology.
Both proposals for individual papers and complete sessions are most welcome. The conference does not predefine topics for abstracts and sessions, as long as the subjects are related to water (are “wet”) and historical/archaeological (are “old”).
Abstracts and sessions can be submitted until November 15th 2019 at email address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Abstracts should be about 250 words plus a 5-lines author bio.
Session proposals of at least 3 papers should include all the abstract information, plus a 100 word description of the session as a whole. Submitting full sessions, including chair and commentator, is highly recommended. Please ensure a balanced member composition of panels.
- Decisions on acceptance are foreseen to be available before the end of 2019
- The concept conference program will be available end of February 2020
- To appear on the final program, presenters with accepted abstracts need to register before April 1st 2020.
Conference fees:
- The regular conference fee is set at 325 euro
- The student conference fee is set at 200 euro
Both fees include all coffee breaks, lunches and reception. Payment information, including how to pay and late fees, will become available soon.
For general enquiries, please contact Maurits W. Ertsen at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Norwegian Graduate School in History: "Environmental and Climate History: The Role of History in Society" (16-18 December 2019)
- Published in News
The recently founded Norwegian Graduate School in History will be holding a PhD-course on environmental and climate history from December 16-18. The course will grapple with questions such as Does the call for a greener political regime require a reevaluation of the way historians think about history? How do you reconcile the timescale of the climatologists with time as it is understood by historians? Can environmental histories of climate be a bridge between “the two cultures” in academia: the natural scientists and the humanists? And more generally: What is the role of history in society?
As the regional representative for the European society for environmental history, we wondered whether you would be interested in informing students about the course? We would be very happy to have international students participating. The Norwegian Graduate School in History have a budget to provide five scholarships to cover travel and accommodations.
The student will also earn 3ECTS, so it might be a good opportunity for PhD-candidates in their early phase of the PhD program.
Here is the link to the course: https://www.hf.uio.no/iakh/english/research/the-norwegian-graduate-school-in-history/Courses/public-history%281%29.html
Kind Regards,
Anna Marie Skråmestø Nesheim
Coordinator for the Norwegian Graduate School in History
WFBMA2019 - Workshop: Forests Between the Margins of the Atlantic (Definitive Program)
- Published in News
The WFBMA2019 Definitive Program is now available for viewing/download. Please click here to view the Definitive Program.