USC.edu

Aro Velmet

Associate Professor of History
Aro Velmet
Email velmet@usc.edu

Research & Practice Areas

Modern Europe, Transnational History, Imperialism, Science, Technology and Medicine.

Biography

I am a historian of modern Europe, colonialism, science, technology, and medicine. I am interested in how utopias of technological progress are put in the service of statecraft, how experts, interest groups, and subalterns use political technologies, and in the unintended consequences of technological development.

My book, Pasteur’s Empire (OUP, 2020) looks at how microbiology became a tool of colonial governance in French West Africa, North Africa, and Indochina, and how African politicians, Vietnamese doctors, French administrators, international regulators and many others shaped the development of vaccination programs,...

Education

  • Ph.D. History and French Studies, New York University, 2017
  • B.A. History, University of Pennsylvania, 2010
  • Other Degree History and Political Science, University of Tartu, 2007

  • Visiting and Temporary Appointments

    • Visiting Reseacher, University of Tartu, 01/2021 – 12/2023

  • Research Specialties

    Modern Europe, Transnational History, Imperialism, Science, Technology and Medicine.

  • Book

    • Velmet, A. (2020). Pasteur’s Empire: Politics and Bacteriology in France and Its Colonies, 1890-1940. Oxford University Press.

    Book Chapters

    • Velmet, A. (2019). “From Universal Relaxant to Oriental Vice: Race and French Perceptions of Opium Use in the Moment of Global Control”. Prohibitions and Psychoactive Substances in Histor pp. 33-50. London: Routledge.
    • Velmet, A. (2018). “Breaking the Silence? Contradiction and Consistency in Representing Victimhood in Baltic Museums of Occupations”. Narratives of Exile and Identity Central European University Press.
    • Velmet, A. (2012). “Breaking Silences: Representing Occupations in Baltic Museums”. Maps of Memory: Trauma, Identity and Exile in Depo pp. 178-211. Lietuviu literaturos ir tautosakos institutas..

    Journal Article

    • Velmet, A. (2020). The Blank Slate E-State: Estonian Information Society and the Politics of Novelty in the 1990s. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. Vol. 6, pp. 162-184.
    • Velmet, A., Kaljundi, L. (2020). New developments in Estonian historical research in the twenty-first century. Acta Historica Tallinensia. Vol. 26 (1), pp. 167-189.
    • Velmet, A. (2019). “When Demography becomes Democracy: Anticommunism, Sovereignty and the Problem of Reproduction in Estonia, 1980-2016”. Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol. 80 (3), pp. 455-478.
    • Velmet, A. (2019). The Making of a Pastorian Empire: Tuberculosis and Bacteriological Technopolitics. Journal of Global History. Vol. 14 (2), pp. 199-217.
    • Velmet, A. (2019). In the Image of Pasteur: Capitalism, Empire and the Scientific Ethos in French Microbiology, 1890-1940. French Historical Studies (forthcoming).
    • Velmet, A. (2014). “Beauty and Big Business: Gender, Race, and Civilizational Decline at French Beauty Pageants, 1920-1938”. French History. Vol. 28 (1), pp. 66-91.
    • Velmet, A. (2011). “Occupied Identities: Constructing National Identity in Baltic Museums of Occupations,”. Journal of Baltic Studies. Vol. 42 (2), pp. 189-211.
    • Member, Estonian Young Academy of Sciences, 2021 –
    • Honorable Mention, Alf Andrew Heggoy Prize for Best Book in French Colonial History, 2020-2021
    • Honorable Mention, Laurence Wylie Prize for French Cultural Studies, 2020-2021
    • European Commission Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellowship, 2017 – 2019
    • Estonian Research Council, 2nd Prize, Best Dissertation in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2017-2018
    • Estonian Teacher’s Journal, Annual Laureate, 2016-2017
    • Jerrold Seigel Fellowship in Intellectual or Cultural History, 2016-2017
    • Josephine De Karman Fellowship, 2016-2017
    • Cultural Weekly Sirp, Annual Laureate, 2014-2015
    • NYU Michel Beaujour Fellowship, 2014-2015
    • Society for the Study of French History Best Article Prize , 2014-2015
    • Phi Beta Kappa, 2010-2011
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