186,173 research outputs found
Architettura e Informatica. Il tempio della gens flavia a Leptis Magna
No full textThis paper illustrates the pursuance of the studies,
focused on the initial phases of the Flavian Temple in
Leptis, until 2014.
The reconstructive hypothesis by the arch. Paolo
Mighetto, based on the old and new archaeological data
as result of excavations and researches in recent years,
allow to publish the first 3d virtual rendering of the Roman
Complex, made by Dr. Massimo Limoncelli, member
of the Italian-Libian Archaeological Missio
Restauro della chiesa confraternita della ss. Annunziata di Bubbio (At): restauro dei partiti decorativi pittorici e a stucco dell'aula liturgica e dell'abside; restauro della facciata (Progetto e DL)
No full textGià Oratorio della Confraternita dei Disciplinati, la chiesa barocca sorge alla testata della contrada Maestra, di fronte alla Parrocchiale di S. Maria Assunta. Edificata nella seconda metà del XVI secolo, la chiesa, ad aula unica con abside semicircolare, presenta una ricca decorazione pittorica. Nel quadro dei lavori di restauro dell'antico oratorio, il restauro della facciata barocca, insieme a quello dei quadri della confraternita e la loro valorizzazione con la ricollocazione all'interno dell'abside, completa il quadro degli interventi per trasformare l'edificio sacro in salone comunale per conferenze e mostre temporanee. Il cantiere ha compreso il restauro della facciata decorata (fine ‘800) della Casa Canonica. Bandi "Cantieri d'Arte 2002 e 2004" della Compagnia di San Paolo P. MIGHETTO-G. VILLATA, La Chiesa Confraternita della Santissima Annunziata già Oratorio dei Disciplinati a Bubbio. Gli interventi di restauro dei partiti decorativi dell'aula e dell'abside, ne «Il Platano. Rivista della Società di Studi Astesi », XXXI, 2006, pp. 11-2
Le Segreterie di Stato e di Guerra nella razionalizzazione di Vittorio Amedeo II e Carlo Emanuele III: il progetto di Filippo Juvarra per la riorganizzazione burocratico-funzionale della Zona di Comando (per una nuova lettura dei documenti)
No full textLa realizzazione dell'idea castellamontiana nella definizione dell'edificato. 1683-1714: dalla morte di Amedeo di Castellamonte alla venuta a Torino di Filippo Juvarra
No full textLe Necropoli Nord di Hierapolis di Frigia. Verso il progetto di conoscenza: nuovi dati e problemi aperti.
No full text
L'antica chiesa parrocchiale di San Martino a Refrancore : storia e restauro per la conoscenza, conoscenza per la tutela e la conservazione di un bene culturale
No full textJohn Perkins Interview by Lisa Mighetto, Olympia, Washington September 12, 2007
No full textOral history interview with John Perkins as interviewed by Lisa Mighetto.
John Perkins is one of the founders of the American Society of Environmental History (ASEH).
Name: John Perkins
Keywords: History, Education, Environmental education, Pollution, PesticidesJohn Perkins Interview by Lisa Mighetto
Olympia, Washington
September 12, 2007
Tape #1
ASEH
Mighetto: Well good afternoon. I suggest that we start at the beginning. Can
you tell me about your background, where you grew up, where you were
educated?
Perkins: Sure. Well I guess I’m a Westerner. Born in Phoenix, grew up in
Colorado Springs. Then, went east to college. Graduated from Amherst
College in Massachusetts, and then I did a year of graduate work at Stanford
and then changed to Harvard. And this was all in biology. So, I started as a
biologist, not a historian, which as always made me sort of a maverick
within the Environmental History Society. Any rate, I got interested in this
field, not out of the graduate work I did. I finished my PhD, finished the
work in ’68. Actually got the degree in ’69.
M: Harvard?
P: Harvard. But by the time I finished the work, I knew I that I didn’t want
to do experimental biology. And that’s what I’ve been doing. I did fungal
physiology and genetics, and so I was interested in [unknown] bodies of a
little mushroom and photo physiology and genetics and development and
that sort of thing. And I really thought it was terrific material, but this was
the time of great social [fronting]. And I thought ya know, I’m not sure the
world needs another experimental biologist. And I thought there were more
important problems to work on, so I had a person that I knew back in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, Everett [Mendleson]. He and I both worked with
the American Friends Service Committee, which I did for a couple of years
after I finished my graduate work. And I was talking to Everett and he said
“Well.” Everett is a historian of science, history of science department at
[Highland]. And Everett said, “Well yaw know, you can do history of
science which allows you to add all sorts of questions about science, where
you can bring in the social dimensions.” And I thought, that’s exactly what I
would really like to do. So, with Everett’s assistance and sponsorship, I got
a [post doctoral fellow] to go to the history of science departmental track
after I finished work with the American Friends Service Committee. And
started a research project that ended up some years later in a book. The
research was on DDT and the simple minded question I had was how come
people were so anxious to use DDT especially after we discovered it caused
lots of problems. Why was there such emphasis to use it? I mean it...
M: And this was post Rachel Carson,. It was ’58 or ‘60.
P: Oh yeah, it was post Rachel Carson. Rachel Carson’s book was very very
influential in my own thinking about pesticides and DDT in particular. So
with Everett’s help, I worked for a year as a post doctoral fellow, and did a
paper on some of the early history of DDT, which I gave to the, what was it
call, the Atlantic Conference on History of Biology or something like that. I
think the meeting was done at Yale, near Haven. But at any rate, after I gave
my paper, this fellow came up to me whose name I knew, but I never met
him. It was [unknown] Hudgenson, a very well known Ecologist who was at
Yale. And he said, “Well I really like your paper.” And I thought that if
[unknown] Hudgenson likes my paper, I’m very happy. And then he said,
“I’m on one of the committees of the National Academy of Sciences, and
we’re just starting a new study. Is this something that you might like to play
a role in?” Well, I was ecstatic. I said, “Well sure. Not a problem at all.”
And so that led me to go down to Washington DC for three years where I
worked on the study on problems of pest control. At the time, this was the
first time the National Academy, National Research Council, had done a
study on pesticides that was not done by the agricultural division. The
Academy have had a number of studies done during the 50’s and 60’s
because the problems that Rachel Carson articulated so well were getting
pretty obvious. And they had the agricultural board do the studies, and there
reports were, I thought, fairly predictable.
M: I guess they have an interest.
P: And the scientists who worked on those committees basically said well if
you use them as directed they won’t cause problems. It’s the people who
don’t use them as directed would cause the problems. And Environmental
Studies Board, which was a new board just newly, organized late 60’s early
70’s. They took it upon themselves to say we think that there’s more to say
about pesticides than what the Ag board is saying. And so I got hired to be
the staff person, and the Environmental Studies board had allocated a certain
amount of its money to support a staff person coming in and getting
something going. So we worked for a year during a preliminary planning
study on what a major study on pesticides would consist of. And then a new
committee was organized. I was one of the people that helped organize it.
Don Kennedy who was at that time a professor of biology at Stanford agreed
to chair the committee, and we were successful in getting money from the
Ford Foundation, EPA, and the US Department of Agriculture. And the
National Science Foundation.
M: The EPA would have been brand new.
P: Brand new, yes. Very brand new. They barely knew where their
paperclips were. But we started in, must of been ’72. Early ’72. And were
successful in doing a complete study on pesticides. It ended up about a five-volume
report. And without taking too much pride of authorship, I will say I
think we did the best report that had ever been done by the National
Academy on Pesticides after that time. They have since been some reports
that surpassed ours quite a bit but we pioneered a new way of looking at
pesticides within the National Academy structure. The report had only very
modest legislative congressional changes that came out of it. But I think it
did set a pattern for a much broader way of looking at pesticides and it
legitimized asking things other than is this material going to increase crop
[unknown] and increase the profits of farmers. And we thought those
questions were important, and they were necessary, but they were not
sufficient. There were many other questions. And so I think that we did
succeed in showing that there was a very broad range of questions that were
important to policy on pesticides. And as I say, our report came out in the
mid 70’s. And then in the 80’s and 90’s, some very good, very important
Academy reports finally came out that actually did change legislation. So, it
took another two decades.
M: But you felt it laid the foundation.
P: I think it did. Or at least I will probably go to my grave convinced that it
must have done some good. It was certainly very interesting for me. I
always regard it as, I lose track a little bit as to whether it was my second or
third graduate education, but at any rate, I went from the Academy, when the
academy study was winding down, I made a decision I didn’t want to stay in
Washington. I wanted to teach. I wanted to teach undergraduates. I applied
for it and got a job at a brand new division of Miami University of Ohio that
was starting an interdisciplinary studies college. And I was in the founding
faculty, and so I went out to Oxford, Ohio.
M: Was this in the mid 70’s?
P: ’74. Right. Yeah. And we started the college. And all I will say is that you
should probably do this only once in your life because it’s too bloody much
work. We arrived in July. Students were due in the end of September. And
we had to create a curriculum. Fortunately it was only the freshmen class.
So, we only had the freshmen curriculum. But for the next four years, we
added a sophomore curriculum, a junior curriculum, and a senior curriculum,
sequentially, one year at a time. And the first class graduated in 1978. Now
to come back to something that’s relevant to ASEH. It was when I was in
Ohio, I contributed a paper to the Doucaine History Forum over in
Pittsburgh. John [Opey] was at Duscaine at the time. I don’t know if I met
[Opey] when I was over there giving a short paper. I might have.
M: How did you find out about the Forum?
P: I don’t know. I saw a notice. And it seemed to be [unknown] to what I
was trying to do and so I gave them my abstract, and they said fine, come
give the paper. But it was shortly after that. I don’t know if I met John
[Opey] at the conference or he picked up my name. But anyway, somehow
we got in touch with each other. And he told me that he was very interested
in this environmental history business. And I said, “Oh, Well that’s great.
What’s that? I mean I was still mostly a biologist. I mean I still thought like
a biologist. And I hadn’t really written a whole lot of history. I’d written
policy stuff for the academy.
M: And is that what you did for the forum?
P: I did a history paper. I essentially started finishing the DDT work I had
started at the Harvard post doc. Because I knew I wanted to bring that to
[unknown] and get it published. In fact, while I was at Miami, I did get that
article published on technology and culture, as a history of technology. And
I put it forth. If you asked me to come up with a title of that paper now, I’d
have to think a while. But it was something about connecting the emergence
of DDT as a technology in wartime, as a World War Two product. So I
made the major focus of the paper was how the Second World War totally
shake the American research and development of DDT. And that DDT did
come to life as a very important commercial product and it had uses beyond
agriculture. It had a lot of uses in public health concerns, and so the paper
focused on the wartime connections to new technology.
M: But John heard that and said that you were interested...
P: Well he thought I was doing environmental history, and I agreed that I
thought I must be too. but I wasn’t trained as a historian. I spent just a year
as a post doc in a history of science department. And historians of science,
they’re always sort of odd because some of them are science trained and
some of them are history trained. So, it wasn’t at that time. It didn’t feel
like a professional history department. It felt like people who were a lot of
mavericks in it.
M: But the term “environmental history” was around?
P: It was sort of around; mostly what I knew about it came from John
[Opey]. And he was starting this newsletter that he was trying to circulate
around. And then again, I probably couldn’t come up with a year. Maybe
John [Opey] could. He said, “Well I want to get this American Society for
Environmental History started. Would you be on the steering committee, the
executive committee?” I said, “Sure.” It sounded like a good thing to me. I
was transitioning from being trained as a biologist to trying to learn to think
like a historian. And the modes of thought are very different. I didn’t
realize how different they were until I finally managed to get a number of
things published that were history, and then I realized, “Oh my gosh, you
don’t think the same way you do as a biologist. It’s totally different.” And
then it was sort of...
M: What are the main differences in your [unknown]?
P: Well, I’ll talk about a symptom of the differences. When you write a
biology paper, you talk about the literature which is identifying the problem.
Then you explain your materials and methods, then you present your data.
Then you discuss your data. And then you draw your conclusions at the
very end of the paper. Historians usually have to tell the answer up front.
That most histories are written so that by the first couple of pages you sort of
know what the answer’s going to be because the way, at least my
understanding and the way I’ve done it, most historians sort of frame the
whole story very quickly. And then the rest of the paper is the elaboration
about why they’re right. Well this was, as I say, a symptom but it suggested
that in history, you sort of have to figure out what your story is, and then you
tell your story. But you tell your reader what your story is to start with. In
the sciences, it was much more, what’s the problem, How are we gonna get
data? Let’s look at the data. And then at the very end, they tell you what the
answer is. And you don’t know the answer up front, and so I don’t know
whether it’s in the doing of the research or the writing of the research that
the difference are just very profound. I remember one of the first things I
tried to write, or one of several things I was writing early when I was trying
to write history; I gave to one of my history colleagues here. And he just...
M: Here at Evergreen?
P: Here at Evergreen. Yes, and he just, well not so gently, told me I had
written it all wrong.
M: He wanted the thesis up front?
P: He wanted the thesis up front, and I said: “Well that takes all the surprise
out.” And he said, “Yes, right. But t hen people can understand what you’re
doing because if you don’t tell them your thesis up front, they’re not going
to get it. And they’re not going to wade through all your lengthy
explanations. And it’s not like writing a science paper.” So he was actually,
this was [Ron Woodberry], Ron [Woodberry] probably did more to educate
me on how to write history than almost anybody else because he was so
frank. But on the other hand, that’s why I gave him the paper because I
wanted his feedback on it. It was very very helpful.
M: When you’re saying that John [Opey] asked you to be on the executive
board, or the steering committee of the new...
P: Yeah, I can’t remember...of the new ASEH. And so...
M: Did you call it ASEH back then?
P: Yeah, I think we did. I think we...I mean the general was called the
Environmental Review so the general title had changed but I think the
organization, I think it started out with that name. And the first group, I’m
not even sure I can come up with all the names of the people on it. I got to
get my records somewhere.
M: The people who were on the committee with you?
P: But it was John and myself. And there was Rob [French] from George
Washington University and [Howell Burston] from; he’s in the Washington
area. Did he work for USGS, for U.S Geological Services or maybe he was
working for National Science Foundation. I can’t remember where Howell
worked. Then [Kierse Sterling] I think was on it. And I think I’m forgetting
some others...
M: How did these people come together? Did John find all of them or did
you?
P: John found them all.
M: Ok. Did he meet them at the forum you mentioned? They weren’t there?
P: No. We finally got a meeting of the executive committee or the steering
committee.
M: You met in person?
P: Yeah, we met in person because we thought if we were a society. We
didn’t have any members to speak of. Or they were maybe a few members.
It was mostly John’s newsletter that I saw as a...Anybody that he could think
of will find out about, that’s interested, he sent them a copy and put them on
the list. And so that was the list of people when we decided to organize the
association in the society, that’s the list of people that as far as I know, we
sent it out to. John was sending most of this out. And a number of people
said yeah, they were interested; they’d pay some dues. Ya know, I think we
got up to, I don’t know, a hundred or two hundred members fairly quickly.
And then it sort of stayed at somewhere around 200/300 members for quite a
while.
M: Now you were still at Miami at this time?
P: I was still at Miami. Yeah, I came out to Evergreen in 1980. So, I’ve
been at Miami from ’74 to ’80.
M: So you’re getting this newsletter? Do you remember what was in the
newsletter? Was it mostly...
P: John [Opey’s] musings as far as I remember. I’m not even sure I have
any copies of that. Maybe he does. I hope he does.
M: Well, I have a few. I was just trying...So you’re getting this newsletter
with John [Opey’s] musings.
P: I invited John over to Miami. So, he came over to Oxford and gave a talk
to our undergraduates, and that was very interesting. He and I...
M: About environmental history?
P: Yeah, he came over and gave an environmental history talk. The students
found it fascinating. John and I talked a lot. I probably had him over to
Miami maybe twice.
M: Was environmental history part of your curriculum? You built a
program there, right?
P: It was, but ya know, we never called it environmental history. We called
it Creativity and Culture II because those are the names we were...
M: Culture number two or?
P: Well there was Creativity and Culture I, which is freshmen. And
Creativity and Culture II, which was sophomore. And it was Curt Ellison,
who’s an American Studies professor at Miami. Curt and I teamed up to
teach Creativity and Culture II. We said, okay let’s make this an
environmental history course. So I think we used Joe [Patula’s] book.
M: Oh, that was out?
P: I believe it was. Now [you know] this was a long time ago, and I can
make up all sorts of stories about what we did.
M: We’re historians.
P: And if you find out that I’m wrong, you’ll just tell me I’m wrong. But I
think we used [Petula’s] book, and so we actually tried to create an
environmental history book that was influenced a lot by Curt’s American
studies so he brought in literature as well as history. And it was influenced
by my history of science and biology because I brought in the history of
science and biology. But we conceived of it as an environmental course
although we may have had a subtitle besides creativity and culture too, but I
couldn’t possibly remember what it was now.
M: But students responded well to it?
P: Yeah, we think that they responded very well. Particularly the first time
we did it. Actually I’ll sort of go off on a little tangent here. In the
freshmen curriculum that we invented, we had natural scientists teaching
with natural science, social scientists teaching with social science, and
humanities teaching with humanities. So, it was all team taught, but within
those big divisions. And I was one of the people in the second year when we
were inventing the sophomore curriculum that said; let’s shake this up. Curt
and I will team up natural sciences/ humanities, and do an environmental
history. And that actually started the ball rolling. So then we had social
scientists teaching with natural scientists and humanities teaching with
natural science and social scientists teaching with humanities. So, we had a
much more diversified second year curriculum that got interdisciplinary
much more vigorously working for the students.
M: And the university supported that?
P: Yes. We were in a division called the Western College of Miami
University which was it’s own degree program. So, our faculty had a very
high autonomy in setting the undergraduate curriculum. The only constraint
we had was it had to be something that satisfied the general education
requirement of Miami University. And that wasn’t hard. Because we made
people take natural science, social science, humanities, and arts. For two
years. So by the end of the two years, they had gotten, what I to this day
think is still my favorite general education program that I’ve ever been
involved with. So Western College actually just this past year was, well I
guess you could say, it was demolished. The University absorbed it into the
rest of the University, and so it’s no longer, I don’t know the details, but it’s
not a separate program. But it lasted thirty years. I can’t tell you why the
University decided to change it to Miami.
M: Wasn’t John [unknown] at Miami?
P: I thought he was at one of the Ohio State campuses.
M: Yeah, ok. I must be wrong about that.
P: Yeah, I don’t think so.
M: You mentioned there were maybe around a hundred members of ASEH
at this time. Were students members? They are now, but back then, was it
mostly professors from other...
P: Yeah, it was professors and a few administrators.
M: You mentioned somebody from USGS. So they were government agency
historians?
P. Yeah, there’s something in the back of my head that says Hal Burston was
working at USGS. But he was interested in historical things, and somehow
he had gotten into Opey’s loop. So, he was one of the founding steering
committee people. But we were such mavericks. I mean Rob French was a
philosopher. Lovely sense of humor. Rob used to just crack us up at the
meetings. But he was a philosopher, but he was interested in environmental.
And I think he was maybe a [unknown] at GW. I mean he was a high
administrator at GW. And [unknown] Sterling was, somewhere in Ohio or
Wisconsin he was teaching. I can’t remember where. We were, I think Kier
was an orthodox historian, and John was, of course, a historian. But then
you have mavericks like Rob French and Hal Burston, and me who were not
professional trained historians. And in one sense, that was the strength of
the founding of ASEH. It got a lot of people in who were not orthodox
historians. It was also the weakness because it wasn’t until more historians
came in that ASEH then became the legitimacy in the historical profession
that I think it has today. But it’s much less filled with mavericks today. To
me, it’s a much more orthodox historian’s kind of thing. And the most
people who go there are in history departments. My perception, and maybe
I’m wrong is that maybe the founding that w
Una proposta per la riqualificazione paesaggistico architettonica attraverso l'uso del colore nei fondo valle de “I paesaggi vitivinicoli di Langhe-Roero e Monferrato
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