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When, where, and how have industrializing humans sought to "improve" plants and animals in order to better integrate them into technological processes and systems? In what ways was the modification of organisms an essential element of modern technology, and with what consequences? The Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis announces a conference, “Industrializing Organisms: Plants, Animals and Technology,” to be held in New Brunswick, NJ, April 4-6, 2002. Papers consider themes ranging from banana breeding and biological weaponry to the industrialization of trees, bees, chickens, and cattle. Historians and scientists will provide panel comments. Registration required (no fee); conference housing and meals available inexpensively. Graduate students especially welcomed. Contact: Lynn Strawbridge, RCHA, 88 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08901, 732-932-8701, or shanko@rci.rutgers.edu. Questions? Email Phil Scranton (scranton@crab.rutgers.edu). For final program with commentators and for online registration form, after February 15, go to: www.rcha.rutgers.edu
Conference Program:
Industrializing Organisms: Plants, Animals and Technology
Continuing Education Conference Center, Douglass Campus, Rutgers - New Brunswick
Thursday, April 4, 7:30 pm
Keynote Address - The Anatomy of Animal Technology
Edmund Russell, University of Virginia
Friday, April 5
SESSION I -- 9:00 - 12:00 - Plants and Profits
The Red Queen and the Hard Reds: Productivity Growth in American Wheat, 1800-1940
Alan Olmstead, University of California, Davis and Paul Rhode, University of North Carolina
Nature and Profit: A Cuban Sugar Plantation in the Early Twentieth Century -
Mark J. Smith, University of Central Oklahoma
Strange Fruit: Banana Breeding Programs and the Contradictions of Commodification -
John Soluri, Carnegie Mellon University
Scientific Agriculture and Corn Improvement in Mexico and the United States: Negotiating Genes, Environments and Politics - Karin Matchett, University of Minnesota
SESSION II -- 1:00-3:00 pm - Science and Organisms
The Biography of a ‘Purely American Disease’: Francisella tularensis and the Industrialization of a United States Biological Weapon, 1911-1960 -
Gerard Fitzgerald, Carnegie Mellon University
Modeling Animals as Technologies and Patients: The Historical Uses of the Canine Hemophiliac in American Biomedicine - Stephen Pemberton, Rutgers University
Manufacturing Green Gold: A History of Industrial Tree Improvement in the United States - William Boyd, Stanford University & Scott Prudham, University of Toronto
SESSION III -- 3:30-5:00 pm - Horses in War and Peace
War Horses: Equine Technology in the American Civil War -
Ann Greene, University of Pennsylvania
Technological Innovation in the Urban Cyborg: American City Horses in the 19th Century -
Joel Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University & Clay McShane, Northeastern University
Saturday, April 6
SESSION IV -- 9:00-10:30 am - Industrial Meat
Making the Chicken of Tomorrow, 1945-1990 -
Roger Horowitz, Hagley Museum & Library
Antibiotics and the Industrial Environments of Postwar Agriculture -
Mark R. Finlay, Armstrong Atlantic State University
SESSION V -- 11:00am-12:30pm - Machines for Milk
Turbo-Cows: About the Production of a Competitive Animal in 19th and Early 20th Century Germany - Barbara Orland, Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, Zurich
Cows as Fast Cars: Italy’s Other Ferrari - Cristina Grasseni, University of Milan
SESSION VI -- 1:30-3:30 pm -- Domesticating Nature
“For Profit and Pleasure”: Peter Henderson and the Commercialization of Horticulture in 19th Century America - Susan Lanman, Metropolitan State College of Denver
The Improvement of Bees: The Search for a Rational Hive
John Clark, University of St. Andrews, Scotland
The Pet Industry: Growing Animals for the Sake of Sentiment
Katherine Grier, University of South Carolina
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