Ben Bradley

Ph.D. Candidate, Teaching Fellow

E-mail: ben.bradley@queensu.ca
Phone: 613-533-6000, ext: 74383
Fax: 613-533-6298
Office: Watson Hall, Room 106 

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Education

M.A. University of Victoria, 2004
Certificate in Public History, Simon Fraser University, 2002
B.A. (First Class Honors), Simon Fraser University, 2001

About

I study the social, cultural, and environmental history of modern Canada, and of British Columbia in particular. My dissertation explores how the BC Interior was transformed by ‘automobility' between the late 1920s and early 1970s - that is, by automobiles, highways, and the constellation of spaces, objects, practices, habits, and images that surrounded them. It focuses on how the province's expanding highway network acted to shape residents' and visitors' experiences of history and nature.

My work revolves around the theme of landscape, and over the past ten years I have developed an interest in a range of historical subfields that help contribute to the study of Canadian landscapes, including:

-material culture and architecture
-the history of art and visuality, especially photography
-mobility, travel, tourism, and transportation
-technology
-business, especially the service industry
-parks, and ideas of wilderness and nature
-heritage sites and historically-themed attractions
-publicity and advertising
-forestry and other primary resource industries
-small towns, rural areas, and regionalism
-local historiography

I am also interested in public history, and have served as a member of the City of Burnaby's Community Heritage Commission and worked as a curatorial assistant at the municipal archives in New Westminster, BC. In my spare time I dabble with photography.

Courses Taught

HIST 393: Western Canada
HIST 256S: The Making of the North American Environment
HIST 392: The Automobile in America, 1900-1970

Publications

"The Aesthetics of Automobile Accessibility in Manning Provincial Park during the Early 1950s," BC Studies (Summer 2011). **Am also co-editing this theme issue on provincial parks and protected areas.

"'A Questionable Basis For Establishing a Major Park': Politics, Roads, and the Failure of a National Park in British Columbia's Big Bend Country" in Claire Campbell, ed., A Century of Parks Canada, 1911-2011 (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011).

"Tower Ranch on the Hope-Princeton Highway," Report of the Okanagan Historical Society (2010).

I am presently helping to organize a symposium on the intersections between mobility and the environment in Canadian history, which will be held at the Glendon College campus of York University in May 2011.

I have book reviews published or forthcoming in American Studies, BC Historical News, BC Studies, Canadian Historical Review, Journal of Transportation History, Material History Review, and Pacific Northwest Quarterly. I have also presented papers to numerous regional, national, and international conferences, including the Canadian Historical Association, Canadian Communication Association, Society for the History of Technology, National Council for Public History, American Society for Environmental History, and Traffic, Transport, and Mobility Studies.