[Infrastructure-readinggroup] ᒡ◯ᵔ◯ᒢ End of Year Message (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

[Niels ten Oever]

Dear all,

TL;DR: the session on December 24 is canceled, we will reconvene in the new year. Schedule is below and on the website.

It has been such a pleasure to read this year again with you! This year we read three books, namely 'Balkan Cyberia', 'Technology of Empire', and 'New from Germany'. We have started reading 'Telepgraphic Imperialism' and 'the Apple II Age'.

There have been participants from all over the world, we have started with reading two books at the same time, and have kept an inviting space from people to come in and out. Having said that, the gender distribution is getting less diverse, so this is something we should keep an eye on. If people have suggestions on how we can become better in this regard, please do reach out.

I was browsing through my calendar and found that the first session of this reading group was, as far as I could find, on June 23, 2021 - so we're reading together for 3.5 years! Right on!

We decided to drop our session on December 24, so please find out current schedule below:

January 7th, 2025 - Telegraphic Imperialism - Chapter 5 // The Apple II Age - Chapter 4
January 21st - Telegraphic Imperialism - Chapter 6 // The Apple II Age - Chapter 5
February 4th - Telegraphic Imperialism - Chapter 7 // The Apple II Age - Chapter 6
February 18th - Telegraphic Imperialism - Chapter 8 + Conclusion // The Apple II Age - Chapter 7
March 4th - The Apple II Age - Inconclusions + Epilogue
March 18th - European Objects - Chapter 1 and 2
April 1st - European Objects - Chapter 3 and 4
April 15th - European Objects - Chapter 5 and 6
April 29th - European Objects - Chapter 7 and 8
May 6th - European Objects - Conclusion

I wish you happy holidays - whether you are celebrating winter solstice, summer bliss, hanukkah, kwanza, christmas or just having some days off work - and I am greatly looking forward to read with you all again in the next year. I cannot cease to express my gratitude for your attention and commitment in these sessions; it is rare to have such a diverse group of people working together for such a long time, without a particular objective outside of communal sense and meaning making.
  
Best,

Niels

PS In the coming weeks I will probably have a look at some of these books for future reading group planning (am very lucky to hace them all in physical copy!). If you think something is missing, or some of these are very (un)interesting to you, please do let me/us know!

Dalrymple, William. 2019. The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Deudney, Daniel. 2020. Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity. Oxford University Press, USA.

Knox, Hannah, and Penny Harvey. 2015. Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise. Cornell University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/57674/.

Long, Pamela O. 2019. Engineering the Eternal City: Infrastructure, Topography, and the Culture of Knowledge in Late Sixteenth-Century Rome. University of Chicago Press. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7208/9780226591315/html.

Swenson, Edward. 2024. Infrastructures of Religion and Power: Archaeologies of Landscape, Ritual, and Semiotics. Taylor & Francis.

Van Laak, Dirk. 2023. Lifelines of Our Society: A Global History of Infrastructure. MIT Press.

This might be a bit too Europe focused for us, but the series approach looks really great:

Diogo, Maria Paula, and Dirk van Laak. 2016. Europeans Globalizing: Mapping, Exploiting, Exchanging. Making Europe : Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Fickers, Andreas, and Pascal Griset. 2019. Communicating Europe: Technologies, Information, Events. Making Europe : Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Högselius, Per, and Erik van der Vleuten. 2016. Europe’s Infrastructure Transition: Economy, War, Nature. Making Europe : Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000. Houndmills, Basingstoke Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1613/2015001279-t.html.

Kaiser, Wolfram, and J. W. Schot. 2014. Writing the Rules for Europe: Experts, Cartels, and International Organizations. Making Europe : Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Trischler, Helmuth, and Martin Kohlrausch. 2014. Building Europe on Expertise: Innovators, Organizers, Networkers. Making Europe : Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=43809.

-- 
Niels ten Oever, PhD
Co-Principal Investigator - critical infrastructure lab - University of Amsterdam
Assistant Professor - Department of European Studies - University of Amsterdam

W: https://criticalinfralab.net
W: https://nielstenoever.net
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