Professor Brett Walker of Montana State University (MSU) will soon be studying the global effects of asbestos use thanks to a 2013 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, which will allow him to travel worldwide to conduct research for his proposed paper, which will be entitled “The Slow Dying: Asbestos and the Unmaking of the Modern World.”

According to a press release by the college, Professor Walker is already an expert in Japanese environmental history and looks forward to learning more about the seriousness of asbestos poisoning throughout the world and the plight of those suffering from asbestos exposure. Walker notes that his studies, supported by the fellowship, will allow him to “look at the possibility of global poisoning as industrial infrastructures around the world are destroyed by terrorism, war or natural disasters, or begin to decay.”

The study will examine a number of locations in the United States, including the most well-known asbestos-related environmental disaster in the country, the site of the W.R. Grace and Company asbestos-tainted vermiculite mine in the town of Libby, Montana near the Canadian border. Walker says he will also travel to Turkey, South Africa, Russia, Quebec and Japan, where he plans to examine archives, conduct interviews with asbestos victims and others, and carry out additional field work that will allow him to compile a comprehensive report.

Walker, who teaches in the Department of History, Philosophy and Religious Studies at MSU, says he hopes to incorporate his studies into his classes at the university. He also hopes to work closely with the school’s Institute on Ecosystems and would like to eventually expand his research to other asbestos-related topics, including the implications of moving materials containing asbestos across national borders.

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