SHOT 50: Looking Beyond. Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Technology

Balanço do evento

The only thing better than celebrating SHOT’s fiftieth anniversary last year, in Washington D.C., was being able to commemorate it all over again this month, in Lisbon. Extending our theme of “Looking Back/Looking Beyond,” this conference featured plenary discussions of the global history of military development, and also of technology in science fiction and graphic novels, topics to intrigue almost anyone.

SHOT’s regular meetings located outside the United States claim a particularly prominent place in the sentiment of all who attend. Now Lisbon, with its romantic fado music, will join the list when our community speaks fondly of our past gatherings in Upsala, London, Munich, Amsterdam, and more. The Lisbon conference was graced with beautiful weather, excellent food, and fascinating tours, ranging from dams and aqueducts to factories across the decades.

SHOT meetings far from our main office rely particularly heavily on the assistance of local organizers, and all of us in SHOT owe the deepest gratitude to our local arrangements committee who made our experience so smooth and pleasant. Aided by an extensive staff, Maria Paula Diogo and Maria de Fatima de Haan efficiently and effectively handled everything from registration to AV equipment.

This meeting featured an especially diverse international range of presenters, a trend for which we have to thank our program committee members Paul Ceruzzi, Tiago Saraiva, and most especially, chair Martina Hessler. No one envies them the difficult chore they faced in sorting through a staggering number of impressive panels and paper proposals, yet they created an intellectually stimulating program, in which multiplier effects showed the richness of topics ranging from clothing in Roman Britain to Victorian postmortem photography. 

SHOT Newsletter, Nº 118, Outubro de 2008

• Technology and Culture — The Lisbon Meeting