Congratulations to Ph.D. student Linda Richards, who has published an article in Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research! The title is “Fallout Suits and Human Rights: Disrupting the Technocratic Narrative,” and it challenges the way we think about radiation effects historically. As she writes, “the topic of radiation exposure is a disputed maze [...]
Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category
Linda Richards Disrupts the Technocratic Narrative
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013Ecology in OSU’s Hidden Forest
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013by James H. Capshew* I started reading The Hidden Forest by Jon Luoma in December. Subtitled The Biography of an Ecosystem, the book details the history of the 16,000-acre H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest and the scientists who have worked there, uncovering the roles of soils, organisms, natural events, and human impacts on a complex forest [...]
Reflection: Bristlecone Pines Between History and Imagination
Tuesday, October 16th, 2012by Laura Cray* On October 14, James Capshew invited his audience at the Autzen House Center for the Humanities to stop and smell the pine cones—or at least contemplate their place in the human understanding of time. His lecture entitled, “The Fascinations of Age: Bristlecone Pines Between History and Imagination,” explored Capshew’s most recent research [...]
Pigs Might Fly
Wednesday, August 29th, 2012by Barbara Canavan* As I plug away on the prospectus for my doctoral research, I ponder all that I have learned from the history of science and medicine in the past two years. My background and interests have led me to the intersection of history, ecology, virology, climate, infectious disease, and technology. It is humbling [...]
On the Codependence of Humans and Honey Bees
Tuesday, July 10th, 2012Ph.D. student Brenda Kellar has been working on the history of honey bee migration along with human beings in the United States. Her article “Honeybees Across America,” began as a research presentation to the Oregon Beekeepers’ Association, and now has been picked up by the Los Angeles County Beekeepers Association. She shows how at critical [...]
Reflection: And God said “No”
Friday, March 2nd, 2012by Tracy Jamison* Mark Lynas is an optimist. On February 29th, Mr. Lynas lectured here at OSU at LaSells Stewart Center on his book, The God Species. According to Mr. Lynas, humans are a God species and consequently we have to “run the planet as if we were gods”. Not the kind of Gods found [...]
Reflection: Cleaning Up Hanford’s Waste
Monday, February 27th, 2012by Jindan Chen* What’s in Hanford’s backyard? What cleanup has been accomplished, and what are the current challenges? What can you do about Hanford? These questions were presented to the Feb 23 open forum here at Oregon State University about the former plutonium production facility in Hanford, Washington. Participants in the forum included representatives from [...]
Reflection: Howkins and the Environmental History of Antarctica
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012by Peter Rumbles* One of the most fascinating aspects of studying Antarctica – at least from a historical perspective – is that humans have only been present on the continent for the last one hundred years. While other historians have argued that to study the history of a place, a human presence is needed, Adrian [...]
National Science Foundation will support Rocks and Reactors Project
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012Linda M. Richards, Ph.D. student in History of Science at Oregon State University, has been awarded a prestigious dissertation improvement grant from the National Science Foundation. She weathered the storm of a tough selection process and now is ready to take her research project on the road–literally. She’ll be traveling by bus (!) to multiple [...]
