RCCHC "Science, Technology, Society and Culture" Talk Series #18 – Rocks that Made Bodies: Doing Environmental History by Following Things
RCCHC
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Date
21 Mar 2025
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Organiser
RCCHC
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Time
16:30 - 18:00
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Venue
EF312 Map
Speaker
Prof. Ling ZHANG
Summary
This talk introduces two case studies, one about flood control in premodern China and the other about dam construction in mid-20th-century China. Both cases feature rocks, the ubiquitous and banal things of the earth. By following where rocks go and observing how they act, I offer a methodological meditation on how to pursue environmental history by privileging things, their diverse materialities, and their capacities to make worlds and histories.
Keynote Speaker
Prof. Ling ZHANG
Ling Zhang is a University Associate Professor in Classical Chinese and Middle-Period China in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow and College Lecturer of Gonville and Caius College. She is a historian of Chinese economy, environment, political ecology, and history of science and technology. She is the author of The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China (Cambridge University Press, 2016), recipient of the 2017 George Perkins Marsh Prize for the Best Book in Environmental History from the American Society for Environmental History. With John McNeill, she co-edits the book series "Studies in Environment and History" published by Cambridge University Press.
