Science, Society, and Environment Working Group

This faculty working group examines topics and issues that explore the intersection between science, technology, the environment and society. It particularly encourages the study of the relationship between science, technology, the environment and society in different geographical locations, from a variety of disciplinary angles and interests and from different periods of time, including the contemporary period. It promotes an active dialogue and exchange of ideas between all disciplines (the sciences, humanities, social sciences and the arts).

About

The faculty working group will be centered on two activities:

Paper presentations by invited guests on the intersection between science/technology/environment and society/culture during the academic year
Support for research on issues related to science, technology or the environment and their interaction with society

Paper Presentations

Paper presentations would involve inviting specialists to come to Claremont, present a paper that will be read by the working group in advance of the visit and discussions with the presenter.

Research Support

Support for research would entail applying for funds to support research on topics related to science, technology and the environment (funds can be used for conference travel, paper presentations, subventions and travel for research and fieldwork with the idea that any new research produced will contribute to curriculum development).

Papers/Speakers

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“Missing the movement: Gaps and opportunities in understanding wildlife responses in the Anthropocene”

February 2024, Ruth Oliver, UC-Santa Barbara

Human activity is causing a precipitous loss of biodiversity and threatening ecological stability on a planetary scale. The recent explosion in animal tracking data offers a potentially transformative tool for supporting sustainable human-wildlife coexistence. Yet, significant challenges remain to creating a mechanistic understanding of the many, interacting ways that humans affect animals. This talk will showcase key insights from work linking the movements of humans and wildlife across the United States which show that information on human mobility is necessary to fully capture human impacts on wildlife. I will also discuss how animal movement data can offer new insights into the drivers of biodiversity loss.

“The Dammed Body: Thinking Historically about Water Security & Public Health”

April 2024, Jennifer Derr, UC-Santa Cruz

This essay traces the historical relationship between the construction of the Nile River and the prevalence of disease in Egypt in the long twentieth century, with an eye to the relevance of this history to other regions on the African continent impacted by the construction of large dams. Beginning in the second decade of the nineteenth century and stretching through the 1970s, the Nile River underwent a dramatic process of transformation. Two large dams–the 1902 Khazan Aswan and the Aswan High Dam–were constructed on the river. Networks of perennial irrigation canals facilitated the practice of year-round agricultural production and the High Dam provided electricity. The remaking of Egypt’s riparian ecologies also had important implications for the health of Egypt’s population as these ecologies were associated with new landscapes of disease and approaches to biomedical treatment.