"Technology, Environment and Work"

"Technology, Environment and Work" Twenty-Eighth Annual North American Labor History Conference Wayne State University, October 19-21, 2006

The Program Committee of the North American Labor History Conference invites proposals for sessions and papers on "Technology, Environment and Work" for our twenty-eighth annual meeting.

The parameters of work have always been shaped and ultimately changed by the uses of technology and the elements of the environment. Even before the tremendous shift of industrialization, labor and the environment, writ large, have coexisted, often in harmony but at times in conflict. Workers welcome technological change and environmental factors that ease their labor. But, at the same time, such changes also threaten not only worker culture and morale but also their very livelihoods. Technology has transformed more than the shop floor, the field and the home. It has affected nature, as well as laborers' relationship to the environment. As we witness on a daily basis, the intersection of technical change and work continues to exercise its complex pressure on labor today, just as it did in the past. This year's conference wishes to explore these issues.

The program committee encourages comparative and interdisciplinary scholarship from a range of national and international contexts, the integration of public historians and community and labor activists into conference sessions, and the use of differing session formats (workshops, roundtable discussions, and multimedia as well as traditional panels). It encourages sessions that address the theme from perspectives of gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality.

The North American Labor History Conference is sponsored by the Department of History, the Walter Reuther Library, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Wayne State University, and the Labor and Working Class History Association.

Contact Information:
Please submit panel and paper proposals (including a 1-2 page abstracts and brief vitas or biographical statements for all participants) by March 20th, 2006, to:

Professor Janine Lanza, Coordinator, North American Labor History
Conference Department of History, 3094 Faculty Administration Building
Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202
Phone: 313/577-2525; Fax: 313 577-6987;
Email: ao1605@wayne.edu