WE ARE PLEASED TO BE OFFERING BOTH IN-PERSON AND VIRTUAL ATTENDANCE OPTIONS FOR THIS EVENT! PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS TO JOIN EITHER VENUE.
For better or worse, windshields have become a major frame for viewing the nonhuman world. The view from the road is one of the main ways in which we experience our environments. These vistas are the result of deliberate historical forces, and humans have shaped them as they simultaneously sought to be transformed by them. In Consuming Landscapes, Thomas Zeller explores how what we see while driving reflects how we view our societies and ourselves, the role that consumerism plays in our infrastructure, and ideas about reshaping the environment in the twentieth century. The talk will compare the driving experience and the history of landscaped roads in the United States and Germany, two major automotive countries. I will focus specifically on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the United States and the German Alpine Road as case studies. When the automobile was still young, an early twentieth-century group of designers—landscape architects, civil engineers, and planners—sought to build scenic infrastructures, or roads that would immerse drivers in the landscapes that they were traversing. As more Americans and Europeans owned cars and drove them, however, they became less interested in enchanted views; safety became more important than beauty.
About the Speaker
Thomas Zeller, a specialist in environmental history and the history of technology, has published books and articles on the historical interplay of technology and environment in shaping landscapes. He is currently working on a book entitled Driven to Death: How We Came to Disregard Car Crashes. His most recent book Consuming Landscapes: What We See When We Drive and Why It Matters was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2022. An open-access version of the book is available HERE. Another book, Driving Germany: The Landscape of the Autobahn, 1930-1970 was published in 2007 (paperback edition 2010). Driving Germany is a revised English translation of Strasse, Bahn, Panorama (2002).
Zeller is the coeditor of two volumes on the environmental history of Germany: How Green Were the Nazis? Nature, Environment, and Nation in the Third Reich, coedited with Franz-Josef Brüggemeier and Mark Cioc (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005) and Germany's Nature: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental History, coedited with Thomas Lekan (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005). With Christof Mauch, he has coedited the volumes The World Beyond the Windshield: Roads and Landscapes in the United States and Europe (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007) and Rivers in History: Perspectives on Waterways in Europe and North America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008).
Zeller's research has been supported by two Scholars Awards from the Program in Science and Technology Studies (STS) at the National Science Foundation, by the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, by the Program in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks/Harvard University, and by the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at the University of Munich. He was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. During the academic year 2022-23, Zeller was the Arthur Molella Distinguished Fellow at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE
The lecture will take place at The First Congregational United Church of Christ, Second Floor, 945 G Street NW, Washington, DC. Reservations are not required. $10.00 for Latrobe Chapter members, student members (full time) free with ID, $15.00 for non-members. Doors will open at 6:30 pm for socialization and refreshments; lecture will begin at 7:00 pm.
VIRTUAL ATTENDANCE
Virtual attendance is free but advance registration is required to participate. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the lecture. Virtual lecture will begin at 7:00 PM. Please note that this event will not be recorded. TO REGISTER VIA ZOOM, CLICK HERE.