Event

After Effects: Periodization, Impacts, and Causes

We’re often caught between the twin poles of the longue dureé and the micro history. Our timespans may be more than a century, or just as few years. In the most recent issue of Technology and Culture, one article looks at a group of scrapbooks created in 1965, while another one is about repair in the longue dureé. 

The theme for our first Theories of History meeting of the year, is theories of historical change, impacts, periodization, and time in our work.  We’ll talk about how we think about the impact of a person, event, group, or trend, about effects and aftereffects, about how we delineate change over time.

What does it mean for something to linger, like the traces in a marshy landscape which reveal past foundations and walls, material remains of a past social and ecological arrangement? What about blood samples, frozen and stored for potential use? Or the intergenerational impacts of radiation exposure, an embodied aftereffect? How do we decide when a historical period starts and ends? What does it mean when we think about the impact of an event, a decision, a process?

How do we think about time as part of our work, and what is at stake when we talk about after?Faculty and graduate student open-ended discussion group exploring major themes, topics, and puzzles in the history of science, technology, medicine, and the environment. Each month focuses on a different theme, with topics ranging from agency, biography, and the definition of science. This month is hosted by Anna Lehr Mueser, PhD Candidate, History and Sociology of Science. 

Please bring your own lunch and enjoy coffee and pastries from the History and Sociology of Science Department.