Historical research often involves a lot of travel. In our quest to discover and examine the past, historians often find themselves in libraries and archives located all over the globe. Such is the recent experience of Professor Pey-Yi Chu, assistant professor of History at Â鶹´«Ă˝. Professor Chu just returned after a year-long sabbatical. We caught up with her to hear more about her travels.
HISTORY DEPARTMENT (HD): Welcome back! A lot of people might not realize just how much the life of the historian involves travel. Where did you go during your leave?
PEY-YI CHU (PYC): Thanks! During my leave I traveled to Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia, Munich and Potsdam in Germany, as well as Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
HD: How exciting! Can you tell us a little bit about the work you did while were in each place?
PYC: In Russia, I was doing research in archives and libraries. For example, I spent quite a bit of time at the Russian State Archive of the Economy in Moscow reading government documents from the Soviet era. I also worked at the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, which has an amazing collection of rare and out-of-print books and hard-to-find historical journals. In D.C. and Cambridge I was similarly doing archival and library research. I was lucky to have access to two of the largest libraries in the United States—the Library of Congress and the Harvard University Libraries—which have a wealth of Russian-language sources. I also worked with U.S. government documents at the National Archives.
In Munich I was more focused on writing than on gathering sources. I had a three-month fellowship at the Rachel Carson for Environment and Society, a research center affiliated with LMU, the university in Munich, and the Deutches Museum. I got to interact with researchers from all over the world—historians, philosophers, literary scholars, anthropologists—working on a variety of projects in the environmental humanities. It was pretty fun.
Philadelphia and Potsdam were for conferences. So, I presented my work to fellow researchers, got feedback, and learned about trends and new findings in my fields of interest.
HD: All of this is for your book project, right? Can you tell us about it?
PYC: Yes. I'm writing a book about the history of permafrost. It focuses on permafrost as a scientific concept that has been contested and that has changed over time. We hear about permafrost today in discussions about global warming because global warming is causing permafrost to thaw. The thawing of permafrost can lead to the release of more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, especially methane, which would further accelerate global warming. My book “historicizes” permafrost by tracing its historical development as an idea. I analyze scientific debates since the nineteenth century about whether permafrost was ice or earth, soil or rock, temperature or matter, a structure or a process. I show that these debates have been shaped by Russian and Soviet history and that our contemporary understanding of permafrost owes a lot to Russian and Soviet science. Even the English word “permafrost” was coined in 1943 as a loan translation of a Russian expression. I argue that political, economic, and cultural developments in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union shaped knowledge about frozen earth and the field of frozen earth research. Sometimes the history of Russia gets perceived as an aberrant or alien experience, but I find that it has contributed to global understandings about the environment in profound and surprising ways.
HD: Exciting! What was your favorite thing about being away?
PYC: One of the most rewarding aspects was getting to talk about my research with new colleagues and new audiences. In Germany I presented my work at the Rachel Carson Center and at the Eleventh International Conference on Permafrost. Both experiences were really inspiring. The other researchers at the Rachel Carson Center asked me questions that challenged my arguments and pushed me to clarify my thinking and consider my evidence from new angles. They recommended books and articles to read that I hadn't considered before. I also had the pleasure of meeting a Pomona alum, a gentleman named Charles Savage from the class of 1962! He came to my public presentation and introduced himself. Afterward, we met up for coffee and had a long conversation about different human narratives about the environment. It was serendipitous to encounter a Sagehen overseas!
Presenting at the Permafrost Conference was an incredible opportunity, too. I was one of very few historians at the conference, which was mostly for scientists and engineers! But the scientist and engineers I talked to were incredibly generous about taking an interest in my research and sharing what they knew about the history of their field. I had the chance to learn about what permafrost scientists are working on today, which is very important and helpful context for my work. I even met a few scientists whose research I want to incorporate into my story! All of these experiences made me feel hopeful that my research will make a contribution and that there are people out there who would read my book.
HD: Now that you’re back, what are you looking forward to most?
PYC: In terms of my book project I'm looking forward to writing the rest of the manuscript and processing and synthesizing all that I've learned. I'm also looking forward to incorporating the insights I've gained into my classes, like new ideas for readings and resources for students to work with. And of course, I'm looking forward to cycling in and around Claremont again. I missed the San Gabriel Mountains while I was away.
Professor Pey-Yi Chu teaches classes in modern European history. This fall, she is teaching an ID1 course called "Cold Places" as well as a history seminar called “Global Environmental Histories.” In spring 2017 she will offer “Modern Europe since 1789” and “The Russian Revolution.”