Almost time to head home. Before bidding Denver farewell, I want thank the @aseh.bsky.social team for organizing a wonderful conference! Thanks as well to everyone who followed my online comments during #ASEH2024.
Looking forward to further conversations in KC, Pittsburgh, or elsewhere. Until then…
Joshua MacFadden, Zachary Tingley, Glenn Iceton, and Erin Spinney presenting at ASEH. Three men and one woman sitting at a long table speaking at a conference.
Three presenters standing in front of a conference slide.
Description of panel presentation “What Do We Get Out of It? Extractivism in the Gulf of St Lawrence, 1759-1856
Panel abstract
Great to present our research from the Ecologies, Knowledge, and Power in the Gulf of St Lawrence Region project at the #ASEH2024 conference! #envhist @glenniceton.bsky.social
A really wonderful and rejuvenating/exhausting #aseh2024 for me, where I met so many new friends and reconnected with old ones. See you in Pittsburgh?
Petrick notes that scientists have sought to explain and eliminate smoke taint from wine grapes since the 19th century, but to no avail.
Given rising temperatures & wildfire rates, it will likely become an increasingly common problem confronting viticulturists during the #Anthropocene. #ASEH2024
And with that, I must leave extreme environments behind & head to the Blake Room for a talk on smoke taint & the wine industry by @gpetrick.bsky.social (2014-15 LHL Fellow)
What is smoke taint? Wine Enthusiast explains: www.wineenthusiast.com/culture/wine... #ASEH2024
Want to learn more about the panoramic vistas that one could see through the windows of TCA’s Vickers Viscount?
@blairstein.bsky.social wrote a blog post on the subject for @nichecanada.bsky.social in 2015:
niche-canada.org/2015/07/31/ehrial-views-... #ASEH2024
Stein notes that Trans-Canada Airlines spent a great deal of time trying to demystify the sky. In books, brochures, etc. they make people feel more comfortable w/flight.
Another strategy: Make the sky a place to extract aesthetic by looking out the window and taking pictures. #ASEH2024
Our final speaker, @blairstein.bsky.social presents a “thought blob” about the sky in the context of mid-20th century air travel.
The sky embodies a form of malleable extremity. For the 1st 40 years of flight—the sky was really extreme! Yet today passenger jets seem far more tame… #ASEH2024
Austin Schoenkopf takes us from the mountains to the desert. He notes that incomplete understandings of the hydrology of are imprinted on Mojave Desert’s landscape.
In one of America’s driest places, water can be a truly destructive force. (e.g. Rain can spread contamination from mines.) #ASEH2024
Pickman’s new project focuses on the relationship between mountaineering, bioprospecting, and cosmetics/skin care. She calls attention to Piz Buin, a brand of sunscreen that traces its origins to chemist Franz Greiter, who got sunburned during a 1938 climb in the Alps. #ASEH2024
Though her previous research has focused on the exploration of polar regions, today @sarahmpicks.bsky.social is discussing mountains, which are extreme environments that have served as sites for bioprospecting, commodity production, or scientific research (e.g., physiology).
#ASEH2024
Rather than describe her own research into extreme environments, @farsouthhistory.bsky.social shares a historiographic survey of ocean history.
She highlights the early 21st c. “oceanic turn,” when scholars started publishing #envhist work on the subject-“studying territory w/o the terra” #ASEH2024
Carioscia cites Charles Perrow in his conclusion, noting that extreme environments are prone to human accidents, as seen in the contamination of subglacial lakes. #ASEH2024
Our next speaker, Travis Carioscia, describes the exploration of underground lakes in Antarctica, which began during IGY. (e.g., Lake Vostok—the largest subglacial lake on the planet.)
Following a 2006 drilling effort, there were calls for regulations to avoid contaminating lake water. #ASEH2024
Time for the last session of #ASEH2024. I’m in McCourt for a roundtable on Science, Extractions, and Extreme Environments.
And what environment could be more extreme than the Moon? Stephen Buono is discussing the international legal framework that regulates the extraction of lunar resources.
Dunlop references Hui & Nichols’ paper to articulate another major theme of this panel: how sounds mediate human engagement w/non-human environments.
(I’d suggest that this theme also applies to Vetter’s work on Lowell.) #ASEH2024
In her commentary, Catherine Dunlop notes that sounds have unusual temporalities that deserve attention from historians.
We should also consider the ways that sounds can bind human communities together. All of these papers involve shared experiences of workers at specific times. #ASEH2024
Nichols: This case study reveals the extent to which experimental physicists must broaden their understanding of the laboratory environment—i.e., move beyond the interior of their facilities & instruments to include the natural world and both visible & invisible sensory environments. #ASEH2024
Nichols: LIGO can confirm presence of noise but harder to determine the source. In one case there were ravens pecking on ice @ the Hanford facility!
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/science/sud... #ASEH2024
Nichols: Physicists need to figure out how audible (and non-audible) vibrations might affect LIGO’s readings.
Where does this fit within existing literature on the vibrational env., which focuses on sound recording, experimental disruption, noise/signal processing in the Cold War, etc.? #ASEH2024
Our final speaker, Tiffany Nichols, begins her talk by asking the audience to look at a picture of the LIGO experiment and think about potential sources of environmental disruption…
#ASEH2024
Hui: The Environments records could both muffle sounds in an urban space or fill the silence in overly rural one.
These nature sounds introduced a new kind of silence that pushed the actual environment further away…
#ASEH2024
Hui: Listeners described using the Environments records to aid in concentration, decompression after work, studying, etc.
SRI’s forms trained users to think that these contrived environmental sounds somehow brought them closer to nature. #ASEH2024
Hui: Background music was an integral part of the built environment by the 1960s.
This paper is more about background sounds and uses response cards to show how the Environment LPs were incorporated into listeners’ personal soundscapes—moving the actual environment into the background. #ASEH2024
Our next speaker, @alixhui.bsky.social introduces the audience to Felix Cartagena, a DuPont employee who filled out a response card about his experience listening to Syntonic Research Inc.’s Environments 4. (He used the gentle rain on side B to muffle the sound of his urban environment.)
#ASEH2024
Vetter: Adopting a sensory approach to Lowell’s industrial history may facilitate conversations between #envhist & #dishist.
Key ?s: What were the harms that new industrial environments imposed on workers? How did sonic environments affect the health and/or discipline workers’ bodies? #ASEH2024
Vetter: Extended exposure to loud noise at a young age can have lifelong effects.
Lowell is an important place to look into the effects of the sonic environment of industrial settings due to its iconic status & the contrast w/its rural surroundings. #ASEH2024
Vetter notes that the science of measuring occupational noise exposure is relatively recent, but that should not stop us from applying its tools to historical case studies.
In the 1830s-40s, people worked ~14 hrs per day; exposure to loud noises was arguably worse in 19th c. than today. #ASEH2024
