The Traveling Box: Containers as the Global Icon of Our Era

The first event commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the UC President’s Humanities Initiative, the conference focused on containers and containerization as a broad umbrella under which to consider the social, economic, and cultural impact of the shipping container; the impact of the container on urban geography, supply chains, environmental and security issues; and the shipping container as material object/raw material to be appropriated, recycled, and adapted for multiple uses. The conference was organized by UCHRI’s Conferences & Seminars program grantee Richard Hebdige, Professor of Film & Media Studies and Art Studio and Director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, UC Santa Barbara and was hosted by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC) and the Center for Work, Labor and Democracy at UC Santa Barbara.