Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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How New Are the Renewables? Historicizing Energy Transitions
Workshop Report (21–23 February 2018, Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany) By Odinn Melsted *All images courtesy of the author In February of 2018, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, in cooperation with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, hosted the academic workshop “How New Are the Renewables? Historicizing Energy Transitions.†The event was linked to the…
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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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Asia and the Pacific: Environments—Cultures—Histories
Workshop Report (LMU-ChAN Satellite Conference, 3–5 November 2017, Rachel Carson Center, Munich, Germany) by Travis Klingberg (All sketches by Libby Robin) Flood-proof cities. The social costs of waste incineration. Water level changes in the Pearl River Delta. The environmental impact of nineteenth-century Chinese immigration across the Pacific. These are a sample of the topics discussed…
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Communicating the Climate: How to Communicate Scholarly Findings on Climate and Weather in a Controversial Time
Workshop Report (Rachel Carson Center, Munich, Germany, 18 August 2017) by Katrin Kleemann On 18 August 2017, the RCC hosted a workshop on the challenges and goals of communicating climate research. The workshop was organized by two RCC doctoral candidates, Jeroen Oomen and Katrin Kleemann, and financed by the European Commission through the Marie Curie…
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Environmental Histories of Architecture
Workshop Report (Rachel Carson Center, 28–29 June 2017). Written by Daniel A. Barber (University of Pennsylvania), Alexander von Humboldt Foundation advanced research fellow and former RCC visiting fellow. Daniel also organized the workshop. The relationship between environmental history and the history of the built environment has only recently begun to gain substantive attention in the…
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Radical Hope: Inspiring Sustainability Transformations through Our Past
Conference Report (Rachel Carson Center, Munich, Germany, 3–4 July 2017) By Erika Bsumek and John Barry Hope by Vaclav Havel Hope is a state of mind, not a state of the world Either we have hope within us or we don’t. Hope is not a prognostication—it’s an orientation of the spirit. You can’t delegate that to…
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Knowing Nature: The Changing Foundations of Environmental Knowledge
Conference Report (Beijing, China, 25–27 May 2017) By Katrin Kleemann Historians like traditions and they like to invent them. Helmuth Trischler, director of the Rachel Carson Center and head of research at the Deutsches Museum, made this remark as he looked back at the conference’s five-year history. In May 2017, international scholars came together in China…
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Household Consumption and Environmental Change in the Twentieth Century
30–31 May 2017, Bologna, Italy In May 2017, the University of Bologna’s Department of History and Culture hosted a workshop entitled “Household Consumption and Environmental Change in the Twentieth Century.†The workshop was co-convened by RCC alumnus Giacomo Parrinello (Sciences Po, Paris) and professor of contemporary history Paolo Capuzzo (University of Bologna). The event was co-sponsored…
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Worldview: Iran Hosts Second International Seminar on Environment, Culture, and Religion (Part 2)
International Efforts to Mobilize Religions in the Cause of Conservation Part 2. The Seminar: Premises, and Intentions Critical action is needed by the international community to address urgent and increasing environmental degradation, and related challenges of social and economic unsustainability. Religion and culture can significantly address climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem loss, pollution, deforestation, desertification…