Katja Bruisch
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kbruisch.bsky.social
Katja Bruisch
@kbruisch.bsky.social
3.2K followers 1K following 170 posts
Environmental historian, Trinity College Dublin. Author of "Burning Swamps: Peat and the Forgotten Margins of Russia's Fossil Economy" (CUP 2025) & "Als das Dorf noch Zukunft war: Agrarismus und Expertise zwischen Zarenreich und Sowjetunion" (Böhlau 2014).
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kbruisch.bsky.social
Katja Bruisch @kbruisch.bsky.social · Sep 25
📣 It's publication day! 🔥Burning Swamps🔥 is out with @universitypress.cambridge.org ! My book tells the forgotten history of peat in the context of Russia’s industrialization & electrification and points to the lingering presence of past extraction 1/5

#envhist #energysky
Book cover of "Burning Swamps: Peat and the Forgotten Margins of Russia's Fossil Economy" by Katja Bruisch. A black and white photograph shows a woman with a headscarf stacking peat
kbruisch.bsky.social
H-Environment Roundtable Review on Anna Mazanik's marvellous Sanitizing Moscow: Waste, Animals, and Urban Health in Late Imperial Russia, with contributions by Robert Gioielli, Jennifer Keating, Susan D. Jones and yours truly
👇 #envhist
networks.h-net.org/mazanik-sani...
Book cover of Anna Mazanik, Sanitizing Moscow: Waste, Animals, and Urban Health in Late Imperial Russia. The cover features a historical picture of Moscow with the Kremlin in the background
September 17, 2026 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
ehne.fr
💬 "En Russie, les spécialistes de la lutte contre les nuisibles héritent dès 1918 de 10 000 bonbonnes de gaz. Jamais acheminées sur le front, ces armes sont d’abord expérimentées pour les besoins de l’agriculture, contre les sauterelles" 👇
ehne.fr/fr/encyclope...

🤝 @aphg.fr @sorbonne-universite.fr
Histoire de la lutte contre les insectes « nuisibles » en URSS
ehne.fr
September 15, 2026 at 7:01 AM
kbruisch.bsky.social
Vaclav Smil's description of nitrogen fixation through lightning and some Soviet science fiction about how to harness that process to make fertilizer 🙃
Text extract from V. Smil's Enriching the Earth. Highlighted in yellow a passage describing nitrogen fixation through lightning cover image from Tekhnika Molodezhi 1965 showing a lightning strike in a rural landscape. The lightning is directly diverted into the field symbolizing nitrogen fixation W/B screenshot from a Soviet journal. The article is written in Russian and called "Udobrenie molniem" (Fertilizing through Lightning).
September 16, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
boydvandijk.bsky.social
new special issue - What was the Cold War?

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
What was the Cold War?
What was the Cold War?, an article collection from Social Science History
www.cambridge.org
September 16, 2026 at 7:28 AM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
emilypawley.bsky.social
We have a book cover!
Cover for book "A Historian's Handbook for Saving the World: Responding to the Global Climate Emergency" edited by Alexandra Hui and Emily Pawley.
September 11, 2026 at 6:19 PM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
kim-todzi.de
CfP: Concluding Meeting DFG Network (Post-)Colonial Business History

pcbh.hypotheses.org/599
CfP: Concluding Meeting DFG Network (Post-)Colonial Business History
Since 2024 the DFG Network (Post-)Colonial Business History (https://pcbh.hypotheses.org/) has worked to consolidate this field inbetween the global history of imperial entanglements and business hist...
pcbh.hypotheses.org
September 12, 2026 at 9:22 AM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
historyecon.bsky.social
We are pleased to publish a new essay for the 1800 Histories website by Mariia Koskina (@dornsife.usc.edu) that sheds light on methane emissions on Raspadskaya coal mine in Kuzbass, Russia.
1800 Histories
Raspadskaya, Kuzbass: Tragedies Measured in Lives per Ton of Coal by MARIIA KOSKINA
histecon.fas.harvard.edu
September 9, 2026 at 7:25 PM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
iansociologo.bsky.social
This 🧵 will have readings that I assign in my Sociology of AI class.
A flyer for the class Sociology of AI The overview says: SOC 3900 Sociology of AI uses a sociological lens to study what is popularly called "artificial intelligence." In this class students will learn about cutting edge research examining the origins, impacts, and struggles over the broad set of technologies and practices involving AI. Through an international focus, this class will cover numerous topics related to AI, including: gig work, algorithmic bias, data colonialism, resource extraction, digital labor, data center studies, and environmental and climate effects. This class will primarily focus on sociological research, but will also include scholarship from geography, history, international studies, and environmental studies, as well as other social scientific and humanistic disciplines. No prior knowledge of AI is required for this class
August 26, 2026 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
danmcquillan.bsky.social
New preprint from me: 'Beyond AI: Infrastructuring the Common Good'. The paper treats AI as diagnostic of deeper contradictions, and argues that convivial practice can reclaim vital systems from the collapse of the technopolitical regime.
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
Screenshot of paper title and abstract. 'Beyond AI: Infrastructuring the Common Good': "Rather than taking AI as a central focus, this paper treats it as diagnostic of deeper contradictions. AI intensifies extractivism while being unable to deliver on its promises, and its rampant scaling of energy and resource demands heralds a form of ‘total mobilisation’. This paper proposes decomputing as a programme for pushing back against such technocratic nihilism. Decomputing adopts a degrowth framework and advocates for reclaiming agency through deautomatisation and people’s coun- cils, in order to develop convivial alternatives that centre an ethics of care. It is a philosophical and tactical response to the wider crisis of care induced by the collapse of existing systems..."
September 7, 2026 at 6:25 AM
kbruisch.bsky.social
#Newbookalert

Looking forward to getting my hands on this 👇

Soviet Workers in the World: Soviet Labor and Working-Class History in Global Context, edited by Emily Joan Elliott and James A. Nealy

www.bloomsbury.com/uk/soviet-wo...
Soviet Workers in the World
This book book brings together multiple generations of scholars, who investigate topics as varied as migration, gender, unfree labor, and automation, to underst…
www.bloomsbury.com
September 5, 2026 at 9:44 AM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
kreienbaumj.bsky.social
Bald beginnt das Semester. Solltet ihr noch überlegen, wie ihr Studierenden vermittelt, wie das Interpretieren von Quellen in der Praxis funktioniert, schaut doch mal in unseren Band.
September 4, 2026 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
ueberdruss.bsky.social
you can find me talking about this in the following places:

Sep 21, CHESS, Yale University, 4-6pm
Sep 23, Harriman Institute, Columbia University, 6-8pm
Oct 19, IfS Frankfurt, 6-8pm
Oct 21, HIS Hamburg (with Dietmar Dath), 6-8pm
Nov 5-8, HM London
Nov 17, KTH Anthropocene History Institute, 1-3pm
ueberdruss.bsky.social daniela russ @ueberdruss.bsky.social · Jan 28
what do we talk about when we talk about energy? my answer features (among many others) adorno, bogdanov, and the austrian communist wilhelm frank, who experimented with national exergy balances in the 1950s. out april 2026.
August 31, 2026 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
timothynunan.bsky.social
The cover and the webpage for my book, "Faith in Revolution: Islamist Internationalism in a Decolonizing World", are officially live at @columbiaup.bsky.social! 📚🎉

Publication in February 2027—more updates to come throughout this autumn and winter.

🔗 cup.columbia.edu/book/faith-i...
Book cover for "Faith in Revolution: Islamist Internationalism in a Decolonizing World" by Timothy Nunan. The background is a dark teal. The title "Faith in Revolution" is set in a large, bold, all-caps, cream-colored sans-serif font occupying the left side of the cover and broken up into "Faith," "In," "Revo" and "Lution." To the right, the subtitle and author name are set in a lower-case version of the same typeface.
August 30, 2026 at 12:07 PM
kbruisch.bsky.social
Well, that's reassuring: lead to help us with nuclear waste (European Chemical News 1965)
B/w photograph. Text promoting lead products as "Dustbins for the nuclear age". The image shows fish underwater swimming around a large black container within which there is a white circle.
August 28, 2026 at 7:56 PM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
elangthaler.bsky.social
Our special issue on "Soy and Agro-Food Change" will be out soon ... #soyfacts
August 20, 2026 at 7:40 PM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
econgeo.bsky.social
Coming soon...
With @landstuff.bsky.social @andremagnan.bsky.social @benbraun.eurosky.social @emilyreisman.bsky.social @desireefields.bsky.social @sarahrotz.bsky.social @jsizek.bsky.social @gtups.bsky.social
and many others #ipesky @jennifer-clapp.bsky.social
August 12, 2026 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
tommenger.bsky.social
CFP for a great conference of the Centre for Transimperial History, taking place in Leipzig next year 19-21 May. Organised by Nadin Heé, Daniel Hedinger & me. Subject: Geopolitics and Empire, revisited from transimperial perspective. Please send in your abstracts!
networks.h-net.org/group/announ...
Revisiting Geopolitics and Empire: A Transimperial Approach | H-Net
Geopolitics have returned to our present—and it is only a matter of time before they will also return to the study of our past. The conference, organized by the Centre for Transimperial History at Lei...
networks.h-net.org
August 16, 2026 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
ketanjoshi.co
Here's Amazon's two new planned fossil-fuelled AI data centres next to the ENTIRE POWER GRIDS OF SEVERAL LARGE COUNTRIES

Together, the two gas-burning data centres will emit more than Spain's entire grid, if built
Bar chart comparing 2025 national grid CO2e emissions (grey bars) with two Amazon fossil‑fuelled AI data centres (red bars), showing the Amazon sites at about 33 and 17.5 megatonnes CO2e—higher than many countries' entire power grids.
August 14, 2026 at 10:39 AM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
mbrescius.bsky.social
Working on resources, extraction, resistance, capitalism or ecologies? Bern, Sept. 2027, with fantastic keynotes by Katja Bruisch (@kbruisch.bsky.social) & Debjani Bhattacharyya.

Travel & hotel funded. Do Apply!

hist-ecosoc.ch
August 13, 2026 at 7:57 AM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
sabinepitteloud.bsky.social
Multinationals, Organized Labor, and the Environment in the Postwar World: Contributions to an International History
www.tandfonline.com/toc/rinh20/4...

Co-edited by Sandra Bott, Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl and myself

@renaudbecot.bsky.social @haavardba.bsky.social @niklasolsen.bsky.social
August 6, 2026 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
pastpresentsoc.bsky.social
New on advance access: "Food Security, Nitrates Capitalism, and the Haber–Bosch Revolution"

by Patricia Clavin (@oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social)

#OpenAccess

doi.org/10.1093/past...
Food Security, Nitrates Capitalism, and the Haber–Bosch Revolution*
Abstract. This article reinterprets the early history of the Haber–Bosch process of ammonia synthesis through the transnational development of synthetic ni
doi.org
August 10, 2026 at 6:20 AM
Reposted by Katja Bruisch
lenkochet.bsky.social
Our forum "Zero Growth, Socialist Modernity, and the Anti-Environmental Turn in Eastern Europe" in Journal of Modern European History is out
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
July 31, 2026 at 8:30 PM
kbruisch.bsky.social
One for historians of the environment and health in the Soviet Union and after👇

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
Deep breathing: the asthma clinic buried 250 metres into an Armenian salt mine
Underground clinic’s fate hangs in the balance after government withdrew state funding
www.theguardian.com
July 29, 2026 at 6:38 PM
kbruisch.bsky.social
woke up to close the window because I smelled smoke. I wrote my book about Russia, but Burning Swamps are literally here.

www.independent.ie/county/wickl...
Screenshot of a newspapaer article reporting a wildfire on peat soil. A picture shows a smouldering fire. The landscape is burnt. Screenshot from a newspaper article. The passage "In recent days, NPWS staff warned that deep-burning peat hotspots remained active beneath the surface, despite the firefighting efforts."
July 25, 2026 at 6:16 AM
kbruisch.bsky.social
#newbookalert Daniele Valisena's "Italian Lives, Belgian Coal: An Environmental History of Labour and Migration" will be published this fall with @upittpress.bsky.social
#envhist
👇
upittpress.org/books/978082...
b/w cover page of Daniele Valisena's Italian Lives, Belgian coal. The cover features a p/w photograph showing an urban landscape with coal mining excavation material in the background
July 24, 2026 at 9:36 AM