Mobility and Environment

Location: Kerschensteiner Kolleg, Deutsches Museum, Munich

Conveners: Christopher Kopper (University of Bielefeld), Christopher Neumaier (Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (ZZF), Helmuth Trischler (Rachel Carson Center and Deutsches Museum)

The Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society is joining forces with the Arbeitskreis Verkehrsgeschichte (Mobility History Study Group) and the Gesellschaft für Technikgeschichte (German Society for the History of Technology) to organize a conference on mobility and the environment.

Call for Papers (PDF, 189 KB)

In our society, transport, mobility, and the environment are closely intertwined fields. Motorized means of transport and their physical infrastructures are responsible for considerable amounts of environmentally relevant emissions (like carbon dioxide), they create noise and require large amounts of space. On the other hand, new concepts of mobility have fueled the growing discourse about sustainability and ecological justice. The policies and politics of transport and the environment are closely connected through causal interdependencies. But the dimension of historical experience is mostly absent in the contemporary discourses about conflicts between transport and the environment. The topics and methods of environmental history are only partially integrated into the history of transport, traffic, and mobility.

This joint conference of the Arbeitskreis Verkehrsgeschichte and the Rachel Carson Center looks at the environmentally relevant aspects of transport, traffic, and mobility from a historical perspective. The conveners favor a wide definition of mobility. Apart from historians, researchers from other disciplines are encouraged to present new research about the ecological aspects of transport, traffic, and mobility, and, conversely, about the effects of ecological thinking and actions on transport. We are looking forward to contributions from all areas of historical research—political history (of transport), the history of political cultures, environmental history, economic and business history, the history of technology, and social and cultural history.

Presenters are invited to give their presentations in German or English. Presentations should not exceed 25 minutes. The organizers provide accommodation at the Kerschensteiner Kolleg of the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Expenses for domestic travel (BahnCard 50 tickets) will be fully reimbursed. Presenters from abroad will receive a percentage of their travel expenses that is yet to be determined.

For further information please contact:

• Prof. Dr. Christopher Kopper, History Department, University of Bielefeld (ckopper@hotmail.com)
• Dr. Christopher Neumaier, Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (ZZF), Potsdam (neumaier@zzf-pdm.de)
• Prof. Dr. Helmuth Trischler, Rachel Carson Center and Deutsches Museum, Munich (h.trischler@deutsches-museum.de)

The conference report can be read here.