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<div align="center"><b><i>Modern Times, Rural Places:<br>
Seminar Series at MIT<br><br>
</i> <br>
<i>SANEMORI'S REVENGE: Insect Technologies, Eco-System Accidents,
and Environmental Toxicity in Japan<br><br>
</i></b>Brett L. Walker<br>
Associate Professor of History, Montana State University -
Bozeman<br><br>
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Brett Walker historicizes organisms such as silkworms by demonstrating
how Japanese desires regarding silk type and quality, Buddhist
conceptions of transmigration and reincarnation, and chemical pesticides
and pollution can shape evolution as well as environmental catastrophes
and public health issues. He argues that many of Japan's agrarian
environmental problems, from poisoned paddy lands to the disfigured
fetuses of farmers, can be seen as "system accidents," because
the rice paddies and other agricultural landscapes insects inhabit --both
hungry pests and desirable bugs --are complex hybridized ecologies.
And every time people put a morsel of food into their mouths, from shiny
sushi rice to crispy fried chicken, they reify their organic interface
with this and a variety of other hybridized social and ecological
systems. <br><br>
<br><br>
<div align="center"><b>Friday, December 2, 2005<br>
2:30 to 4:30 pm<br>
Building E51 Room 095<br><br>
</b>Sponsored by MIT's History Faculty and the Program in Science,
Technology, and Society<br>
For more information or to be put on the mailing list, please contact
Margo Collett at
<a href="mailto:mcollet@mit.edu">mcollett@mit.edu</a><br><br>
For location visit
<a href="http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg" eudora="autourl"><u>http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg<br>
</a></u></div>
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