Thomas Brandt
Background and activities
I am Professor in History at NTNU. I am working within the history of science and technology, broadly defined. I have published several works ranging from military-industrial history to media history and urban waterfront development history. I have also published works on design history, business history, and university history.
I am teaching courses in digital history, historiography, history of science and technology, and cultural heritage studies. Apart from teaching, supervising, and research, I also have experience with creating innovative museum exhibitions through an engagement as a researcher at the NTNU Faros Knowledge Park. I was part of the team behind the exhibition Klima X at the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology in Oslo that received the Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Award in 2009.
I received my doctoral degree from NTNU in 2006, where my dissertation examined the cultural production, mediation, and consumption of the Italian 'Vespa' scooter in the 1950s and 1960s.
In 2002, I was a visiting scholar at the Zentralinstitut für Geschichte der Technik, at TU Munich.
In 2004, I was project coordinator of the interdisciplinary research project 'The Factory' ('Fabrikken'), resulting in a series of working papers and the book Fabrikken, for which I was co-editor, as well as translator and contributor. In 2004 the book Fabrikken was awarded the annual best non-fiction book prize by the Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen.
In 2010 I published a book on the history of my own alma mater NTNU, covering 250 years of science, scholarship, engineering, and higher education, in collaboration with historian Ola Nordal.
Between 2014-2019, I was PI for the project 'The history of the Norwegian Research Councils, 1946-2016'.
I am also part of the research project 'The High Seas and the Deep Oceans: Representations, Resources and Regulatory Practice' (3ROceans).
I am PI for a pilot project exploring the significance of the office room in academic knowledge production, 'The Office as a Mileu for Ideas and a Theatre of Memory'.
I am/have been part of the supervising team for the following doctoral candidates:
Frode Weium (Thesis defended 2017)
Tirza Meyer (Thesis defended 2018)
Christina Næss
Kim K. Ménage
Widar Aa. Kristoffersen
Ingebjørg Eidhammer
Dag Andreassen
Courses
- HIST2535 - Doing History in the Digital Society - Theories, Methods and Practice
- HIST2005 - History of Technology and Science
Scientific, academic and artistic work
Displaying a selection of activities. See all publications in the database
2019
- (2019) "Fremragende" som ledeord i norsk kunnskapspolitikk. Opplysninger. Festskrift til Knut Ove Eliassen på 60-årsdagen 26. oktober 2019.
- (2019) Avhengig av forskning - De norske forskningsrådenes historie. Fagbokforlaget. 2019. ISBN 978-82-450-2132-5.
2017
- (2017) Envisioning a national infrastructure for science – academic entrepreneurship in 1890s–1950s Norway. Management & Organizational History. vol. 12 (3).
- (2017) The Ocean as an Alternative Energy Future: Ocean Wave Energy Conversion in Norway since the 1970s. CHAM III "Oceans and Shores: Heritage, People and Environment" . The Portuguese Centre for Humanities (CHAM) /NomadIT; Lisboa. 2017-07-12 - 2017-07-15.
- (2017) The Peaceful Revolts: 1968 in the Nordic Welfare States. Student Revolt, City, and Society in Europe From the Middle Ages to the Present.
2016
- (2016) Capturing the Power of the Ocean Waves: The Rise and Demise of a Research and Development Project for Ocean Wave Energy Conversion in Norway, 1970s–1990s. SHOT 2016 Society for the history of Technology Annual Meeting . Society for the History of Technology; Singapore / Tembusu College NUS. 2016-06-22 - 2016-06-26.
2015
- (2015) Building an Infrastructure for Industrial Research in Interwar Norway – Academic Entrepreneurship from Science Funds and Industry Laboratories to Research Councils. “Academic entrepreneurship in history. An international survey of current research” . University of Gent; Ghent. 2015-03-11 - 2015-03-13.
2014
- (2014) 1968 as a turning point in Trondheim's university history. University Jubilees and University History Writing - A Challenging Relationship.
- (2014) Forskningsrådenes historie 1946-2016 - et overblikk og en invitasjon. Forskningspolitikk.
2013
- (2013) A Vehicle for 'Good Italians': User Design and the Vespa Clubs in Italy. Made in Italy: Rethinking a Century of Italian Design.
2012
- (2012) Contested heritage sites - rethinking methodology and practice. The case of the former Union Carbide site in Bhopal, India. Association of Critical Heritage Studies Inaugural Conference . Association of Critical Heritage Studies, Gøteborgs Univ; Gøteborg. 2012-06-05 - 2012-06-08.
2011
- (2011) Collecting scientific instruments – why and for whom?. XII Universeum network Meeting . Universeum + Universitetet i Padova; Padova. 2011-05-26 - 2011-05-29.
2010
- (2010) Chemical Engineering versus Industrial Chemistry at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, 1930s-1950s. 4ESHS . European Society for the History of Science; Barcelona. 2010-11-18 - 2010-11-20.
- (2010) Turbulens og tankekraft. Historien om NTNU. Pax Forlag. 2010. ISBN 9788253033488.
2009
- (2009) Skjult havn åpnes - et essay om havna og byen i utstillingskatalog til Elin Andreassens utstilling "Trondheim Verft". Trondheim Verft AS - Separatutstilling av Elin Andreassens arbeider [Kunstnerisk og museal presentasjon] . Elin Andreassen; Trondheim, Meråker, Szczecin, m.fl.. 2009-05-16.
2006
- (2006) Frie hjerter og små motorer. Kulturell produksjon, formidling og bruk av den italienske Vespa-scooteren i Italia, 1946-1969. 2006. ISBN 82-471-7949-0.
- (2006) La Vespa negli Stati Uniti: il trasporto culturale di una merce italiana. Memoria e Ricerca. Rivista di Storia Contemporanea.
2004
- (2004) Fabrikken. Spartacus. 2004. ISBN 823040004-0.
2002
- (2002) "Centaur, Venus or Centauress - Gendering the Vespa scooter in Italy in the 1940s-1960s.". Skriftserie fra prosjektet Fabrikken.