The Society for the History of Technology conference in Portland next week has a few panels that might be of interest to people engaged in discard studies.
Friday 11 October
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Salvage: Reuse and Repurposing in the History of Technology
Organizer & Chair: Hanna Rose Shell (Massachusetts Institute of Technology )
Commentator: Merritt Roe Smith (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Finn Arne Jørgensen (Umeå University):
Build-It-Yourself to Pre-Built: Salvage Practices in Norwegian Leisure Cabin Construction

Hanna Rose Shell (Massachusetts Institute of Technology):
Shoddy Technology: Wool Salvage and Textile Repurposing in the West Yorkshire Heavy Woolen District

Carl Zimring (Pratt Institute): Toward a History of Upcycling: Reconsidering High-End
Aluminum Reuse Since World War II

David Lucsko (Auburn University):
‘A1 Arizona Rust-Free Parts’: Specialty Automotive Junkyards in an Age of Streamlined Salvage

Saturday 12 October
10.30 – 12.30 PM

Contested Social Infrastructures
Chair & Commentator: TBA

Har Ye Kan (Harvard University Graduate School of Design):
Negotiating a Balkanized City: Electric Trams in Urban Shanghai, 1908–1937

Robin Kellermann (University of Technology Berlin):
Do Infrastructures Talk Politics? Flyovers as Hybrid Agents of Paradox, Political Legitimation, and Urban Change in South Indian Hyderabad

Eric Hardy (Loyola University, New Orleans):
Don’t Flush on Me: Water Pollution, Policy, and Protest in the City of Atlanta, 1990–1998

Victor Marquez (Cornell University):
‘Viewports’: Bringing Out the Fuzzy Zone Between Users and Technological Systems