Last possibility for suggestions was May 14th. Delivery of final papers and posters for all papers is: August 31st to submissions@t2m.org. The poster format should be a pdf. It will be published in A2; therefore remember: pictures in fine resolution and letters of appropriate size.

Posters Posters are an important element of every t2m conference and the submission of a fully completed poster form (1 page A4) is mandatory for all speakers.

Posters of all oral presentations will be exhibited in the public area of the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin. This practice will contribute to better promotion of the history of transport, traffic and mobility as a science discipline and as a public service. Thus T2M will also contribute to bridging the ever increasing knowledge gap between research and society.

To support the creation of your poster and to make the work easier we have published two documents:

an instruction
a template

Theme

The Conference Theme is “Transport and Mobility on Display”. We invite papers and sessions, which discuss the history and future of transport museums, exhibitions and collections and transport halls in larger technology museums and the relation of academic mobility history and transport museums. By this, T2M seeks to establish a closer collaboration between academic scholars, curators and exhibition makers in the field of transport, traffic and mobility.

The call is not limited to the history and future of transport museums and exhibitions but intends to explore different exhibitions of mobility: for instance advertising, car design, transport fairs, e.g. railway stations, motorways, bridges or traffic signs, are “Transport and mobility on display”, offering mobility and landscape experiences. Their sensible appearance shape the image of transport, and have an impact on transport policy and use. In addition to visual aesthetic appearance, smell, noise and other senses are important for the impact of transport on display. Thus, the call seeks for an innovative analysis of the social, economic, political and psychological impact of the manifestation and appearance of transport and mobility. It takes on questions, T2M already has discussed at the 5th annual conference in Helmond on “Transport Heritage and Design”.

Transport museums belong to the best visited museums in the world. In technology museums, departments for transport and traffic often are the most attractive halls. Counting visitor figures, transport museums and halls can easily claim to represent are a tremendous success story. On the other hand, transport museums have been criticized for presenting an often uncritical and techno-enthusiastic image of mobility, limiting its scope to the aesthetic and technological sensations of transport vehicles while undervaluing the history of traffic and mobility, of transport infrastructures, as rails, roads and rivers, and of environmental and of societal effects of transport, as societal exclusion and inclusion by accessibility. Many transport museums are notoriously under-budgeted, often have not enough or no curatorial staff and often nearly no research infrastructures. Many transport museums are operated by volunteers, often elder male engineers.

By analysing transport and mobility on display, the conference shall contribute to a material cultural history of transport and mobility and shall envision new concepts and forms of transport and mobility exhibitions. Transport history has turned to cultural history later than the history of technology. Only in the last two decades, we experience something like a boom in cultural histories of transport and a slight shift in transport history focus towards the passengers, their experiences and adventures. Museology has claimed that the educational function of museums has somewhat decreased during the last decades in favour of more emphasis on experience, leisure and thrill. Theme parks have become competitors and models for new enter- and edutainment concepts. Interactive hands-on and children departments have become commonplace. In the world of transport exhibitions and museums, however, experience and thrill always have played a significant role even in unwritten didactical concepts. A look on the history and future of transport museums therefore can reshape our image of public use of history and heritage from educational to leisure institutions. Museum curators and academia researchers need more occasions to exchange knowledge and expertise. The conference will offer an excellent framework to bridge those two worlds.

In short: the conference shall bring together perspectives from different academic disciplines, the museum’s world, exhibitions and fairs to understand the impact of transport on display. It shall lead to a closer collaboration between museums, exhibitions and research institutions in the field of transport, traffic and mobility. Therefore, we especially encourage multi-perspective joint session proposals. It is a T2M tradition that paper and session proposals are not limited to the general topic. We ask for paper and session proposals for all themes in the field of transport, traffic and mobility can be proposed. By this, the annual conference shall give, in a broad way, an up-to-date overview on the field of historical transport and mobility studies.

Poster Presentations

Submission of a fully completed poster form (1 page A4) is mandatory for all speakers, for T2M 2011 wants to invest more energy into communication. Posters of all oral presentations will be exhibited in the public area of the museum. This innovation will contribute to better promotion of the history of transport, traffic and mobility as a scientific discipline and as a public service. Posters will be judged. The best posters will receive a prize during the banquett. Poster forms will be made available later on the website of the conference.

Deadlines

The full paper of all accepted submissions and of the posters must be delivered on or before August 31, 2011 to: submissions@t2m.org. These papers will be available to all Conference participants before the conference. Individual presentations at the Conference are therefore to be limited to a fifteen-minute summary to allow for debate and discussion within the session. All participants are required to register.

Committees

LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Hans-Liudger Dienel
TU Berlin, Center for Technology and Society
Sasha Disco
TU Berlin, Center for Metropolitan Studies
Alfred Gottwaldt
Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin
Gunter Heinickel
TU Berlin, Center for Technology and Society
Joseph Hoppe
Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin
Sabine Krick
Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin
Massimo Moraglio
TU Berlin, Center for Technology and Society
Martin Schiefelbusch
TU Berlin, Center for Technology and Society

ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Joachim Breuninger
Verkehrsmuseum Dresden
Anne Ebert
Technisches Museum Wien
Kilian Elsasser
Museumsfabrik Luzern
Bernhard Graf
Institut für Museumskunde Berlin
Wolfgang König
TU Berlin, History of Technology
Kurt Möser
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Ralf Roth
University of Frankfurt
Helmuth Trischler
Deutsches Museum, Munich
Richard Vahrenkamp
University of Kassel
Christopher Kopper
Universität Bielefeld

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Dirk Böndel
Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin, Germany
Hans-Liudger Dienel
TU Berlin, Germany
P.K. Goel
CILT, Delhi, India
Ian Gray
Charles Sturt University, Australia
Peter Norton
University of Virginia, USA
Javier Vidal Olivares
University of Alicante, Spain
Jørgen Burchardt
Museum of Southern Jutland