Call for Papers - Bicycle History

Call for papers
Session on Bicycle History
ICOHTEC, Manchester, U.K., 22–28 July 2013

Invitation to contribute a session of the theme Knowing Users: Social Demands in Shaping Technology and Designing Products at the 40th Symposium of the International Committee for the History of Technology, ICOHTEC (Manchester, U.K, 22–28 July 2013). Organised by Timo Myllyntaus and Tiina Männistö-Funk.

The Invisible Bicycle: New Insights into Bicycle History For more than two decades now, bicycle history has been an active field inside the history of technology, containing a diversity of studies from detailed accounts on technological development to social histories of cycling and theoretical approaches on bicycle use and innovation. Recently, bicycle is also attracting increased attention as a sustainable means of transport, the historiography of which is of interest in current debates on mobility.

Despite of the ongoing interest and the multitude on historical insights, bicycle history calls for further research, especially as the bicycle has at some point in time been an integral part of everyday life and mobility in probably all corners of the world. Many aspects of bicycle use and technology remain invisible or show only fleeting presence in the bicycle historiography. Partially this is due to locations that appear peripheral, such as developing countries and rural areas. But even the Western, urban cycling asks for more scrutiny, especially during the decades of bicycle’s most intensive use as a means of transport, from the early 20th century till the1960s. Similarly interesting are the dynamics of the decline and a new increase in cycling in the second half of the 20th century.

How can we study the history of everyday practices in bicycle use and non-use? Is the decline of cycling in industrial societies a universal phenomenon? How do the transnational timelines of bicycle history look like? How have technological features and design influenced on the image and popularity of cycling? Are there “national styles” in the design and technical characteristics of bicycles? To this session we invite papers on all aspects of bicycle history, but especially on those so far understudied.

We encourage questioning typical timelines of bicycle history and presenting of alternative histories and controversial case studies.

Please, contact Timo Myllyntaus (timmyl@utu.fi) or Tiina Männistö-Funk
(tiiman@utu.fi)and submit and abstract (200 – 400 words) of your paper and a one-page CV by Friday
9 March 2012.
Further information at: http://www.icohtec.org/annual-meeting-cfp-2013.html

'Transport, mobility and tourism' at ASAA conference - July 2012

Massimo and others at T2M have been involved in creating a T2M inspired stream 'Transport, mobility and tourism' at the 19th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA), to be held in July 2012.

More details will be available in the T2M newsletter.

KNOWING ASIA: ASIAN STUDIES IN AN ASIAN CENTURY
19th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA)
11 to 13 July, 2012
University of Western Sydney, Australia.

Various streams including: Transport, mobility and tourism

Deadline for submissions of abstracts (individual paper or panel proposals): Tuesday 28 February, 2012

For more info: http://www.conferenceonline.com.au/index.cfm?page=booking&object=abstract&forceHB=1&id=240

Call for Papers Australian Transport Research Forum

“Shaping the Future - linking research, policy and outcomes”
35th Australian Transport Research Forum
26-28 September 2012

Perth, Australia

The theme is Shaping the Future, and there are two broad sub-themes which they are interested in: Urban Areas - catching up with population growth and Regional Areas - catching up with resources demands.

Abstracts due: 31 January 2012
Papers for review due: 1 May 2012

For more info: http://wired.ivvy.com/event/DLXB3A/

Call for Papers: 'Revisiting the Transportation Revolution'

Revisiting the Transportation Revolution
Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Vancouver, British Columbia
21-23 September, 2012

Generations of economic historians have written extensively about the economic impact of the transportation improvements. Nevertheless, new tools, new data, and new techniques derived from geographic information systems, economic geography, and the like continue to offer better measures of the impact of the improvements in roads, ships, railroads, and planes (and the infrastructure which support them). They also provide new insights into the short and long term effects of these changes and how they have shaped our world by diminishing the importance of space and place. Once upon a time, distance in the form of time and money protected producers and isolated communities and cultures. Improved communications and transportation have eroded these—a process which continues to this day as these technologies evolve.

Deadline for papers and session proposals: Friday, 27 January, 2012 to ensure consideration.
Deadline for application for poster session: Friday, 18 May, 2012
For more information: http://eh.net/eha/meetings/2012-meeting

Opportunity for a T2M reunion in Sydney, Tracing the City: Methods of Analysing Urban Structures and Transformations

Opportunity for a T2M reunion in Sydney?

The International Society for Social Science Methodology, 9-13 July 2012

http://conference.acspri.org.au/index.php/rc33/2012/schedConf/trackPolicies

The Eighth International Conference on Social Science Methodology is being held at the University of Sydney in July. They have multiple streams/tracks calling for papers covering a variety of methodological issues. Of particular interest to T2mers is the following track. Note that the deadline for abstracts is 1 December 2011.

Tracing the City. Methods of Analysing Urban Structures and Transformations

Session Convenor: Anna Laura Quermann, Technical University Darmstadt

The city is a special kind of space where people meet (to live, work, go shopping etc.). As part of the industrial revolution cities became centres of innovation and progress but also for social and spatial inequality as well as places where ethical and racial differences clash. The specific density of heterogeneous inhabitants and spaces make the urban structure an interesting field of research for social scientists. Over time many sociologists (e.g. Henri Lefebvre or fellows of the Chicago School) worked on exploring the structures of cities by using a wide range of data such as historical documents, interviews, maps, statistical data and observations. The session aims to discuss the empirical methods to research cities. Potential topics should therefore address one or more of the following questions: - Which are appropriate methods to analyse cities? - Which data are suitable for which kind of research questions and how can they be collected? How valid are results drawn from the different kind of data? - When and why is it useful to use a mixed-method or multi-method approach? And which data collection and analysing methods fit best? What are the challenges which researcher are faced with then? Papers debating general methodological questions and papers discussing specific problems using a concrete data type in a specific research project are both equally welcome.

5th Global Conference Diasporas: Exploring Critical Issues

5th Global Conference Diasporas: Exploring Critical Issues

Friday 29th June 2012 – Sunday 1st July 2012 Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

Call for Papers:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/diversity-recognition/diasporas/call-for-papers/
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th January 2012.

I am posting this call for papers as the streams within the conference have relevance when thinking about how communities represent their mobility and absence from place, in relation to their self-defined place of belonging.

Their openness to interdisciplinary research, and different mediums that could be used for analysis also seem relevant to research questions that were raised at the T2M Summer School.

Please see the website for more information. There is lots of things there to inspire.

Sit around and talk: Understanding #OCCUPYWALLSTREET

Wednesday October 26, 2011, 7:30 pm
501 Schermerhorn
1190 Amsterdam Avenue

Tomorrow at Columbia, academics will be talking uptown about occupants downtown. I'll be attending and reporting back. Ironically enough, the event is RSVP. Far from apathy, Columbia students have questioned their part in the ows movement, for their university largely benefits from Wall Street. On the other end, OWS has us, educators and scholars, reflect on our practices and the end of our work. Occupants are shaking things all the way up the ivory tower.