Technology & Societal Challenges, ca. 1815-2015
Background
Today ToE is building a second flagship program that engages with current debates on crises and 'grand challenges' haunting our present-day world -- such as climate change and other environmental crises; the threatened breakdown of unsustainable cities and energy, mobility, financial, and health systems; migration and security challenges; and so on. The new program was announced at the 7th ToE Conference (Stockholm 2015). The argument in short:
- Current societal and scholarly debates center on social and environmental 'grand challenges' that haunt our present-day world;
- Technology plays a pivotal, yet ambiguous role as both cause and solution to these challenges;
- Technology has played this double role for centuries (and centainly throughout the modern era);
- This raises the compelling historical question: how was (and is) technology involved in the (un)making of past and present challenges?
- Tensions of Europe, as a community studying technology & transnational history, has the network and research experience to address this question.
At a kick-off workshop in Vught, the Netherlands, in 2016 representatives from 13 partner institutions launched an explorative program. Working groups, grouped around relevant themes, set out to build a network of engaged scholars and a research agenda. This explorative program is to be followed by an in-depth research program. In September 2017 the program was discussed at the 8th ToE Conference in Athens, Greece.
Current working groups
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Technology, Environment, and Resources
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Sustainable Urban Mobility
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Technology, Borders, Migration, Labor
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Governing Technology in an Age of Global Challenges
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Crises Imaginaries and Socio-Technical Cultures
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(*** new ***) ICT & Financial Crises
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(*** new ***) The energy challenge in historical perspective.
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(*** new ***) Unmaking Technology: Waste, Reuse, and Other Afterlives of Technology
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TBA
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TBA
This theme list serves as starting point. Scholars and institutions are invited to get involved and join developing theme groups or propose new themes.
More information
- Report of the 2016 kick-off workshop;
- Erik van der Vleuten, Challenging Prometheus: a History of Technology for an Age of Grand Challenges (Eindhoven, 2017)
- ToE8 (2017) Conference Plenary slides
- Contact working group coordinators by email (see working group pages)
- Contact Erik van der Vleuten (e.b.a.v.d.vleuten[at]tue.nl) for new working group proposals.

First workshop of the Technology, Environment and Resources working group in St. Petersburg, 2016

Kick-off workship in Vught, the Netherlands, 2016