Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
-
First-ever International Summit in Environmental Humanities
30 June–2 July 2018, Hohenkammer and Rachel Carson Center (Germany) Environmental Humanities (EH) is a new and innovative field of study that engages interdisciplinary scholarship from across the humanities spectrum to study the relationship between humans and the physical world they inhabit. In summer 2018, the Rachel Carson Center convened a meeting of leaders in…
-
New Hope for Plastic Waste Pollution?
Hazardous Hope Part 3 By Jonas Stuck In 2016, a new actor entered the main stage and brought new optimism into the fight against plastic waste pollution. Let me introduce Ideonella sakaiensis. A group of researchers from the Kyoto Institute of Technology and Keio University discovered this bacterium outside a plastic bottle recycling factory in…
-
The Bellflower Specialists
By Eunice Blavascunas and Alie J. Zagata I grew up in Switzerland, in a family of natural historians. I often say that I grew up in a sleeping bag because my family went camping in the wilderness most weekends and throughout the summers.
-
Insect Profile: Chelostoma rapunculi
By Eunice Blavascunas and Alie J. Zagata On the Swedish island of Öland in the Baltic Sea, a fascinating little creature is rapidly disappearing. Chelostoma rapunculi, also known as the scissor bee, is a European solitary bee species. What makes it so interesting is the fact that it is oligolectic: this fussy bee relies on…
-
CfA: RCC Fellowships 2019–2020
The Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society invites applications for its 2019–20 cohort of postdoctoral and senior fellows. The RCC’s fellowship program is designed to bring together excellent scholars from a variety of countries and disciplines who are working in the fields of environment and society. In this application round, the RCC is offering…
-
Hope in the Murky Waters of the International Shipping Industry
Hazardous Hope Part 2 By Ayushi Dhawan (*Featured image: CTG. Ship Breaking 06. Photo by Naquib Hossain [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Flickr) This summer, I went on a field trip to Alang-Sosiya in the northwestern state of Gujarat, India, where geriatric vessels are anchored in the shipbreaking yards for their not-so-respectful funeral rights. They are taken apart…
-
CfP: Irregular Ecologies: The Environmental Impact of Unconventional Warfare
Workshop, 20.07.2019 – 21.07.2019 Location: Florianopolis, Brazil Conveners: Christof Mauch (Rachel Carson Center, LMU Munich) and Javier Puente (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) Warfare seldom affects humans alone. While inflicting devastating effects on societies, armed conflicts also shape economic, cultural, sociopolitical, and ecological transformations. As violence territorializes, armed conflicts begin to affect the ecologies and livelihoods…
-
CfP: The Nature of Health, the Health of Nature: Perspectives from History and the Humanities
Conference – Renmin University of China, Beijing, China, 30.05.2019–01.06.2018 Location: Renmin University of China, Beijing, China Sponsors: Center for Ecological History, Renmin University of China, and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society Since Rachel Carson’s path-breaking book Silent Spring (1962), many experts and citizens have been trying to understand how the health of nature and of human beings…
-
Pushing Wine in a “Bierland”: The Case of East Germany
By John Gillespie In some way or another, all modern states establish alcohol policies. One important question in any study of these systems is whether or not the type of drink makes any difference.