CFP: ICOHTEC 2014 Panel - Modern versus traditional? Core and peripheries in the transport and communication infrastructural process
Proposals are sought for papers to be presented in a
session entitled Modern versus traditional?
Core and peripheries in the transport and communication
infrastructural process, which will be submitted for the 41st annual meeting of
International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), which will be
held in Brasov, Romania from 29 July to 2 August 2014. The general theme
selected for the meeting is:
Technology in
Times of Transition.
Panel proposal
Panel title: Modern versus traditional?
Core and peripheries in the transport and communication
infrastructural process.
Panel rationale:
We would like to go beyond the distinction between core
and periphery as defined in terms of time (modern versus traditional; civilized
versus primitive) and political agenda (progressive versus backward), and move
to a more innovative approach, such as, for instance, gender (masculine versus
feminine), number (cores and peripheries), and contamination (how peripheries
accept, adapt and twist incoming models, and how this altered examples are
bouncing back to the cores). The question, then, is: What set (and sets) this
periphery apart? And are periphery and core (still used within the discipline
of World History) really the right terms to indicate these differences? (Wolfe
2010) In this vein, peripheral can have a double entendre. Peripheral can be
applied geographically, in which infrastructures follow stereotyped models,
which are disseminated from a geographical core to peripheries. But
"peripheral" can be also understood as presence of different layers
of infrastructural systems in the same place, in which some networks are
hidden, marginal or silent, and others are revealed. Finally,
"peripheral" can refer to under-researched investigation paths:
for this proposal, for instance, we stress the need of a
closer collaboration between transport historians and communication scholars.
We are especially interested in contributions that
explicitly reflect on the peripheral nature of the proposed topics and
approaches, so your paper can trigger a discussion on the merits and problems
of the concepts used in this proposal. We also would like to invite
contributions that sketch possible research projects, again with an explicit
reflection on the usefulness of the propsoed concepts.
If you want to contribute to the session, please contact
Simone Fari fari@ugr.es and submit a
200-400-word abstract of your paper proposal and a one-page CV by Sunday,
January 26, 2014.
Panel organizer: Simone Fari
Affiliation: Universidad de Granada
Contact: fari@ugr.es