Social Sciences
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Swedish Visitor to Discuss Industrial Heritage in Sweden
April 23, 2008
Window mirroring a former steel plant (in the Ruhr area in Germany). |
The Social Sciences Department at Michigan Technological University will sponsor a public lecture on industrial heritage in Sweden. Anna Storm from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm will deliver the lecture on Thursday April 24 at 7:30 PM in Fisher Hall room 138 on the Michigan Tech campus. Her talk is entitled “Industrial Heritage and the Heritage Industry: Some Experiences in Sweden.”
Dr. Storm earned her bachelor of arts in history at Stockholm University in 2002, and just defended her dissertation in March. Her study, "Hope and Rust: Reinterpreting the Industrial Place in the Late 20th Century," examined three case studies of re-development, economic growth, and heritage tourism in former industrial areas: Koppardalen in Avesta, Sweden’ the Ironbridge Gorge Museum in Britain; and Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord in the Ruhr district of Germany. Her academic training is as a historian of technology, with special attention to industrial heritage issues. Anna has been part of a research project at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm on “The Transformation of Industrial Society: Industrial Growth and Change in Company Development and Municipal Planning.” Her particular contribution to this study was to explore the role of the industrial heritage in municipal planning and renewal. Dr. Storm’s expertise and topic will be of immediate interest to everyone in the Copper Country concerned about the preservation and interpretation of this area’s extensive industrial heritage, and interested in the possibilities of economic development, the re-use of historical industrial structures, and heritage tourism.
View over an industrial landscape, also from the Ruhr area. |
The department also will host an open forum with Dr. Storm, co-sponsored by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and the Graduate Student Council (GSC). All students are invited to join an informal conversation with Dr. Storm, who will discuss her decisions about pursuing an academic career and the general situation for women in the academic world in Europe. This forum will be held on Friday afternoon April 25 at 3:00 PM in the Peninsula Room of the Memorial Union.
Dr. Storm’s visit and all events are sponsored by the Department of Social Sciences with the support of the Visiting Women and Minorities Scholars Series. For more information, please contact Bruce Seely, Department of Social Sciences, phone: 906/487-2113; email: bseely@mtu.edu.
Related Links
Michigan Tech Social Sciences PhD Program in Industrial Heritage and Archeology
