Office of External Communications

Houston, TX 77204-5017 Fax: 713.743.8199

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 8, 2005

Contact: Angie Joe
713.743.8153 (office)
713.617.7138 (pager)
ajoe@uh.edu

Historians will journey through “Energy Space Time,” the theme for the American Society for Environmental History’s (ASEH) annual meeting, March 16 to 19 at the Warwick Hotel.

The University of Houston will host ASEH’s conference, which will examine subjects including global energy consumption, the management and politics of national parks, satellite technology’s impact on environmental research and history’s role in defining industry and community in the Mississippi Delta.

“Houston is the obvious inspiration for this year’s theme: Energy Space Time,” Kathleen Brosnan, UH professor of history, said. “Home to global energy corporations and possessing a legacy of industrial pollution, Houston is not just an energy city; it symbolizes the energy society. The city has come to symbolize the energy society because of Houstonians’ dependence on single-vehicle transportation as they traverse the highways that loop the region. There is also a human energy, which helped propel the nation’s accelerating economy resulting in the city’s fabled links to NASA, the once cutting edge Astrodome, and the expansive suburban landscape that characterized post-World War II America also helped earn Houston the nickname Space City.”

UH professors Brosnan, Martin Melosi and Joseph Pratt will participate on panels. Melosi is the Director of the Center for Public History at UH. His expertise includes environmental history and politics, and energy and the environment in Industrial America. Brosnan is the author of “Uniting Mountain and Plain: Cities, Law, and Environmental Change Along the Front Range.” Joseph Pratt is the Cullen Professor of History and Business at UH and has written numerous books on the business history of the oil and gas industry. These UH professors and ASEH officers are available for comment. Please contact Brosnan at kbrosnan@uh.edu to make arrangements.

The four-day conference is open to the public for a registration fee. Those fees are $110 for ASEH members; $115 for non-members; $50 for students; or $50 for a single-day registration. The full conference program and a list of speakers can be found at: http://www.h-net.org/~environ/ASEH/conferences.html.

The American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) was founded in 1977 to promote research, teaching and publication in environmental history, with special attention to fostering dialogue between humanistic scholarship and environmental science. Emphasis is on the perspectives of history and the liberal arts and sciences. The society encourages dialogue among the disciplines on every aspect of the present and past relationship of humankind to the natural environment.

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