USES OF ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES: BETHANY WIGGIN
The Uses of Environmental Humanities series explores diverse and creative ways of thinking with the Environmental Humanities in responding to socio-environmental challenges. Contributors address the influence of the Environmental Humanities and ways in which we might use this field of study, offering insights into the interactions between societies, science, politics, and culture. The series is curated by Samantha Rothbart.
“Environmental Inhumanities”
A Freudian slip opens this essay on the uses of the environmental humanities, and it also introduces the EH program that I direct at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH). Inspired by many others, EH at Penn fosters research collaborations with scientists as well as with collaborators whose environmental expertise may not be readily translated into academic norms of either the humanities or sciences. A good definition of EH foregrounds its intent to “inhabit a difficult space of simultaneous critique and action.”[1] This space lies beyond the research university’s existing disciplinary and other corporate structures: more welcoming, more fluid–better attuned to the people it systemically excludes with knowledge structures predicated on centuries of black and brown oppression. This essay highlights the Philadelphia place-based projects I know best. They’re often on water; they try to imagine and invite other relations to land. What we make together in these liquid spaces often does not look like conventional “research.” That’s precisely the point.
Stimmenspur: Sound Trails in the English Garden
By Vera Kovacs
Have you ever burst into tears when a song came on the radio that reminded you of a loved one lost? Have you ever avoided going a certain route or into a room in your house where you once had a bad experience? Have you ever mimicked the hand gestures of a loved one you missed because it comforts you in a familiar and yet very powerful way? The human brain is one of the biggest mysteries in the world, so it comes as no surprise that certain sounds, places or movements will activate emotions, memories, and instinctive reactions in us. The knowledge that resides within us is not just a cognitive function, but also an embodied experience that we, as humans, project into everything that surrounds us. Moreover, things that we hear, see, touch, smell, or do, inadvertently change the way we experience the world; they change us. How can we enrich the field of the Environmental Humanities by taking seriously the way in which sensory experiences affect our lives? Katharina Müller, friend and co-dreamer, and I, believe the project we have created, Stimmenspur – Sound Trails in the English Garden, can help to answer the question of sensory enrichment. Read More
Environmental Histories—Environmental Futures: Perspectives from Germany and Italy
Workshop Report (17-21 June 2019, Villa Vigoni, Italy)
June 2019 saw a group of German and Italian scholars come together in the German-Italian Cultural Center of Excellence Villa Vigoni to discuss national perspectives on environmental history. The event was convened by Roberta Biasillo (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm), Serenella Iovino (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Christof Mauch and Claudio de Majo (both from the Rachel Carson Center, Munich).
From the first session on Monday afternoon, it was clear that the participants came from an array of diverse backgrounds. While environmental history was a trait-de-union for several German and Italian participants, with senior scholars such as Christof Mauch and Gabriella Corona representing environmental history in Germany and Italy respectively, the group also included participants with backgrounds in literary studies and the fine arts, such as leading environmental humanities scholar, Serenella Iovino.
2020 Visions for Environmental History: Magical Infrastructures
This is the third post in a series on “2020 Visions for Environmental History” being published jointly by NiCHE’s blog The Otter ~ La loutre and Rachel Carson Center’s blog Seeing the Woods, with posts by Lisa Mighetto, Alan MacEachern, Arielle Helmick, and Claudia Leal. The series is intended to promote discussion at a session of the same name at the World Congress for Environmental History in late July.
Magical Infrastructures
By: Arielle Helmick
Lisa Mighetto and Alan McEachern both talked about the sustainability of conferences and conference travel in the previous posts in this series: I’d like to open this discussion up to talk about sustainability in academia more generally. At the Rachel Carson Center—which our fellows have sometimes nicknamed Nirvana, or referred to as a magical place for academics—where I work as managing director, we have had many opportunities to both refine and redefine our vision for the future, and sustainability has been at the heart of this. We have always called ourselves a center, though this is a bit of sleight of hand, at least from an infrastructural perspective. In the terms of the university landscape (and according to our funders, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research), we are a large research project. And it is this word ″project″ that has become more and more a source of worry as we’ve moved through our 12-year tenure (we turn 10 on 1 August 2019, if anyone is counting). Research projects in Germany, and probably in many other countries, have clear start dates, and clear end dates. They are not built to be sustainable. Read More
The Anthropocene: Challenging the Disciplines
Workshop Report (8 April 2019, Vienna, Austria)
Vienna Anthropocene Network, University of Vienna
On 8 April 2019, the University of Vienna hosted the workshop “The Anthropocene: Challenging the Disciplines” organized by the recently established Vienna Anthropocene Network. The 12th floor Sky Lounge of the university building at Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 granted the participants a breath-taking rooftop view over the city of Vienna. The surrounding mixture of medieval churches and cathedrals, mountains, and modern architecture constituted the perfect setting to discuss history, nature, and science at the intersection of perhaps the most debated concept of the last decade: the Anthropocene.
Read MoreIn Conservative Bavaria, Citizens Force Bold Action on Protecting Nature
*This post was originally published on the Yale Environment 360 site in April 2019 and has been reproduced here with permission. The featured image shows activists gathering in Munich to show support for Bavaria’s biodiversity referendum in January 2019. Photo: Georg Kurz
Christian Schwägerl is a science journalist and author. In the past, he has collaborated with members of the RCC on several publications and events, including the exhibition: Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands (see here and here for print and digital companions to the exhibition).
Alarmed at steep declines in insects and wildlife, Bavarian voters backed a referendum aimed at changing destructive farming practices and repairing damaged ecosystems. Now, Bavaria’s initiatives are inspiring other German states to move to stem the loss of biodiversity.
Bavaria is known around the world for its Munich Octoberfest, beautiful alpine panoramas, old castles, and cars from the Bavarian Motor Works (BMW). But within Germany, Bavaria is known for something else: it is by far the most conservative of the country’s 16 federal states. Bavaria’s staunchly traditionalist governing party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), has been in power continuously since 1946, pursuing a conservative agenda relating to family, bioethics, immigration—and the environment. Over the years, it has restricted the construction of wind farms, thwarted new environmental regulations for farmers, and blocked imposing a speed limit for cars on autobahns.
2020 Visions for Environmental History: Well-Grounded
This is the second post in a series on “2020 Visions for Environmental History” being published jointly by NiCHE’s blog The Otter ~ La loutre and Rachel Carson Center’s blog Seeing the Woods, with posts by Lisa Mighetto, Alan MacEachern, Arielle Helmick, and Claudia Leal. The series is intended to promote discussion at a session of the same name at the World Congress for Environmental History in late July.
Well-Grounded
In late July, I’m off to the 3rd World Congress of Environmental History in Florianopolis, Brazil. Perhaps because of the effort and expense of getting there, it is a relatively modest global conference, with the program listing 385 presenters, including 86 from Brazil. Of the 299 international presenters, a full 88 are from the United States, another 19 from China, 19 from the UK, 6 from Canada, 1 from Lesotho, and so on. I have calculated that the 299 of us will fly approximately 3,027,300 kilometers to reach Florianopolis, and 3,027,300 kilometers to return home. The fuel burned for our air travel—that is, from just our 598 seats, not the 598 flights in which we fly—will release approximately 1,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide. Put another way, international travel for the WCEH will reduce the Arctic summer sea ice cover by approximately 4500 square meters, the size of 3 hockey rinks.[1] Read More
Changing Landscapes of Indigeneity: CHE Place-Based Workshop
Workshop Report (13–16 May 2019, Madison–Wisconsin, USA)
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Center for Culture, History, and Environment
By Daniel Dumas
In May 2019, a group of staff, doctoral candidates, and Environmental Studies Certificate Program students from the Rachel Carson Center traveled to Wisconsin in order to take part in a place-based workshop organized by the Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE) of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The RCC’s participation in CHE’s place-based workshop has become an annual tradition, strengthening ties between the two environmental humanities centers. This year, Professor of Anthropology and American Indian Studies, Larry Nesper, organized the workshop, which sought to explore the changing landscapes of Indigeneity within present-day Wisconsin. Over the course of four days, the workshop’s 40 participants learned from and met with three Indigenous Nations: the Ho-Chunk, Menominee, and Oneida Nations.
2020 Visions for Environmental History: The Trouble with Conferences (Part 1)
This is the first post in a series on “2020 Visions for Environmental History” being published jointly by NiCHE’s blog The Otter ~ La loutre and Rachel Carson Center’s blog Seeing the Woods, with posts by Lisa Mighetto, Alan MacEachern, Arielle Helmick, and Claudia Leal. The series is intended to promote discussion at a session of the same name at the World Congress for Environmental History in late July.
The Trouble with Conferences: Part 1
By Lisa Mighetto, Rachel Carson Fellow 2019
If you are an environmental history scholar, chances are you have attended academic conferences to advance your career. If you are a student or new professional it is likely that you have been strongly encouraged to participate. At some point, you may be asked to organize a scholarly meeting. So important are conferences in the United States that the American Council of Learned Societies requires its member organizations to hold these events annually. Conferences foster the networks and intellectual cross-pollination that result in publications, projects, workshops, and other scholarly activities. A conference that occurs annually demonstrates a field’s credibility (critical mass), continuity (the idea that it will build on previous work and gain momentum for the future), and maturity (it will stand the test of time). The conference is a manifestation of the scholarly community—an indication that there is a cohesive group that goes beyond individual institutions and, in many cases, national borders. Read More
The Schaus Swallowtail
*Previously published in Wild Life: The Institution of Nature, by Irus Braverman. © 2015 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Published by Stanford University Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
**The featured image (courtesy of Thomas C. Emmel), taken from the book, shows Schaus swallowtail butterfly number 158, held by Thomas Emmel in 2013. Upon emergence from their sac, every captive adult is marked with a number on the underside of the wing. Schaus swallowtail 158 was marked on the day of her or his first capture, released, and then re-captured several days later.
Today, in this second excerpt from Irus Braverman’s book, the challenges of saving an endangered species are brought into focus. The author would like to dedicate this post to the memory of Thomas Emmel, who passed away in 2018. His passionate work continues to inspire and guide Lepidoptera conservationists the world over.
By Irus Braverman
Thomas Emmel, now a retired University of Florida professor, directed the captive breeding project for more than twenty years. Establishing the program cost $50,000 (“these butterflies are damn expensive,” says Kierán Suckling5), obtained largely from federal sources. Despite the fact that the USFWS recognized the importance of captive propagation, the agency’s preference toward in situ conservation was clearly emphasized throughout. Accordingly, the 1999 federal recovery plan stated: “All future efforts to captively breed Schaus swallowtail butterflies should be conducted in situ in as natural conditions as possible. Preferably, butterflies should be raised in enclosures in suitable habitat within the historic range. Captive propagation efforts closer to release sites are preferable for many species. This would limit transport time and possible difficulties in achieving a successful release.”6 Read More
