Kirke Elsass

Kirke Elsass is the Cassius Marcellus Clay Fellow in Environmental History. He is a US historian specializing in the intersection of environmental history and the history of technology. He earned his PhD from Montana State University and his BA (geology) from Carleton College.  

Elsass’ research implements methods of neo-materialism to account for modern cement’s participation in the development of American cultures. His book project follows three technological artifacts—prisons, sidewalks, and home basements—as increasing use of cement in each factored into how people lived in and imagined those spaces. Concrete, the now ubiquitous application of cement’s binding power, is popularly associated with twentieth-century megaprojects and brutalism. This project instead investigates seemingly mundane cemented structures that nonetheless shaped everyday life. Reaching back to the Canal Era, it finds a consequential continuity in cement’s ability to impede and separate elements including water, dirt, rats, and sound. 

Building community is important to Elsass’ scholarly identity. At Montana State, he co-founded an environmental humanities working group with Professor Catherine Dunlop. He served two terms as chair of the Early Career Caucus in the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH). As a Clay Fellow, Elsass will help steer Yale Environmental Humanities while continuing as a leading contributor to the public-facing New Haven Environmental History Project.