Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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From Herders to Hikers, the Shifting Lives of Scottish Bothies
This piece was originally published by Edge Effects and is reposted here with kind permission. All photographs are courtesy of the author. By Jonas Stuck When I was 20 years old, I heard about huts in northern England and Scotland called bothies. I didn’t even know how to pronounce the name, let alone how to find…
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Making Tracks: Teresa Spezio
By Teresia Spezio As a child, I had first-hand experience with air and water pollution. I grew up in the city of Pittsburgh, which was once the steel making capital of the United States. I remember trips on the Parkway East with my family driving past the Jones & Laughlin primary steel mill where men…
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Transformations in Environment and Society
by Arielle Helmick In February 2018, a group of Carson fellows and staff headed to Abu Dhabi—not for a mid-winter beach trip, but rather for the inaugural collaborative workshop between the RCC and the newly founded Earth Humanities Research Initiative at New York University Abu Dhabi. This exchange was the brainchild of Carson alumna Sophia…
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The Brewing Boom of the Middle Ages
By Richard W. Ungar Until 1200, beer brewing in Europe was largely a small-scale affair. Hops soon changed that. Based on practices in Bremen and other ports along the North Sea coast of Germany, a seemingly minor change laid the foundation for a booming industry in Renaissance Europe, one with a scale and reach unmatched…
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Q&A with Jessica J. Lee
For this Bookshelf post, we asked author and RCC alumna Jessica J. Lee a few questions about her work and her 2017 book, Turning: A Swimming Memoir. What is the subject of your book and how did it come about? Turning is a hybrid work of nature writing and memoir, following a year I spent…
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The Reinheitsgebot: Between German Consumer Culture and the European Market
By Robert Terrell On 15 July, 1987, West German federal president Richard von Weizsäcker received a letter from one Andreas Z., which began: “Much has been written about the Reinheitsgebot lately.”
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LUNCHTIME COLLOQUIA, WINTER SEMESTER 2017/2018
Climate politics, posthumanism, planetary health, ecofeminism, and much more during the 2017/2018 winter semester at the Rachel Carson Center. Would you like to keep up to date with our latest Lunchtime Colloquia? Then follow us by subscribing to our Rachel Carson Center Youtube Channel for new (and old) discussions! 12 October 2017: Christopher Cokinos on “Atlas of…
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Snapshot: The Lookout
By Jonas Stuck When I first reached the Lookout, I was blown away by the spectacular plunging cliffs and the magnificent views across the sea and the Outer Hebrides. But I hardly had any time to enjoy the sunset—a storm was about to hit northern Scotland, and it would last three days. I took the photo…
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Saturday Morning’s Politics of Seeing
Nancy Jacobs, Professor of History at Brown University, Rhode Island (USA), provides a rich and personal account of practicing interdisciplinary research. On a field trip to uncover knowledge and beliefs about the African grey parrot in Cameroon, Nancy worked together with her brother (an experienced birder) and her field assistant (an ornithologist), gaining deep insights…