The Greenhouse is a meeting place for students and researchers interested in the history and sociology of plants, food, agriculture and environment to explore how science and technology shape what we grow and eat. The regular programme of papers and discussions is curated in conjunction with the project From Collection to Cultivation, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust.
In Lent Term 2023, our reading and conversation will focus on the history of plant pests in relation to human migration and racial categorizations, drawing especially on Jeannie Natsuko Shinozuka, Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022).
On Monday, February 27 we will discuss:
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Chapter 6, Shinozuka, Biotic Borders (“Japanese Beetle Menace: Discovery of the Beetle”)
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Chapter 7, Edmund Russell, War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (“Annihilation, 1943–1945”)
The reading group is open to all. We meet fortnightly during Cambridge term time in the HPS Board Room (Free School Lane, Cambridge) and on Zoom to discuss papers or presentations. Write to hps-cultivation@lists.cam.ac.uk to subscribe to regular updates on readings and to get access to the Zoom link.
