Anya Zilberstein's interests focus on the cultural, environmental, and international dimensions of the British empire, colonial North America, and the Atlantic world, particularly the relationship between science and empire; the history of natural history; and critical studies of technology and material culture. Her dissertation "Planting Improvement: Small Farms and Scientific Agriculture in the British North Atlantic, 1740-1820," analyzes the relationship between land-use practices and the construction of scientific expertise in the British empire, particularly in its northern cold temperate territories. By reconstructing intercolonial and transnational networks among botanists, planters, and farmers in New England, Nova Scotia, and Britain and their contacts throughout the empire, "Planting Improvement" shows how encounters with local environments and the resistance of ordinary farmers challenged the assimilationist program of scientific or "improving" landowners and colonial officials.
Anya teaches in the History Department at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, while in MIT nonresident status during academic year 2008.
environment; empire; natural history; eighteenth-century
 |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
MIT HASTS Building E51-185 | 617-253-3452 | hasts@mit.edu |
