----- Forwarded message -----
From: "Colin Divall" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, Feb 27, 2012 16:43
Subject: CfP History of Bicycles Manchester, UK, July 2013
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Call for papers
Session on Bicycle History
ICOHTEC, Manchester, U.K., 22–28 July 2013
Invitation to contribute a session of the theme Knowing Users: Social Demands in
Shaping Technology and Designing Products at the 40th Symposium of the International
Committee for the History of Technology, ICOHTEC (Manchester, U.K, 22–28
July 2013). Organised by Timo Myllyntaus and Tiina Männistö-Funk.
The Invisible Bicycle: New Insights into Bicycle History
For more than two decades now, bicycle history has been an active field inside the
history of technology, containing a diversity of studies from detailed accounts on
technological development to social histories of cycling and theoretical approaches on
bicycle use and innovation. Recently, bicycle is also attracting increased attention as a
sustainable means of transport, the historiography of which is of interest in current debates
on mobility.
Despite of the ongoing interest and the multitude on historical insights, bicycle history
calls for further research, especially as the bicycle has at some point in time been an
integral part of everyday life and mobility in probably all corners of the world. Many
aspects of bicycle use and technology remain invisible or show only fleeting presence in
the bicycle historiography. Partially this is due to locations that appear peripheral, such
as developing countries and rural areas. But even the Western, urban cycling asks for
more scrutiny, especially during the decades of bicycle’s most intensive use as a means of
transport, from the early 20th century till the1960s. Similarly interesting are the dynamics
of the decline and a new increase in cycling in the second half of the 20th century.
How can we study the history of everyday practices in bicycle use and non-use? Is the
decline of cycling in industrial societies a universal phenomenon? How do the transnational
timelines of bicycle history look like? How have technological features and
design influenced on the image and popularity of cycling? Are there “national styles” in
the design and technical characteristics of bicycles? To this session we invite papers on all
aspects of bicycle history, but especially on those so far understudied. We encourage
questioning typical timelines of bicycle history and presenting of alternative histories and
controversial case studies.
Please, contact Timo Myllyntaus ([log in to unmask]) or Tiina Männistö-Funk ([log in to unmask])
and submit and abstract (200 – 400 words) of your paper and a one-page CV by Friday
9 March 2012.
Further information at: http://www.icohtec.org/annual-meeting-cfp-2013.html
