Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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Snapshot: “Beyond Doom and Gloom: An Exploration Through Lettersâ€â€”A New Virtual Exhibition
By Katrin Kleemann The Environment & Society Portal has launched a new virtual exhibition, curated by Elin Kelsey. It is a collection of letters that addresses the cultural concept of “doom and gloom†with regard to the issues we are currently facing at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The concept of “doom and gloom†makes it…
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Snapshot: Busy Urban Mining Bees
The warm temperatures we saw here in Munich at the beginning of April were likely the trigger for the frantic mating spectacle of Andrena mining bees. These busy little bees overwinter in burrows and over the course of a few days in spring, the adults emerge to reproduce. A frenzy ensues as the males wrestle each other to catch and mate with the emerging…
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Snapshot: “Consuming the World†workshop, RCC, 11–12 March 2016
The workshop “Consuming the World: Eating and Drinking in Culture, History, and Environment†took place at the Rachel Carson Center on 11–12 March and brought together scholars from a range of disciplines for two days of discussions on food, culture, history, and the environment. In addition to the papers from participants, there was also a…
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Bavarian Beavers Remind Us of Lent
Walking along the Isar and Würm rivers in Munich you can see the remnants of trees that have been felled by the resident, nonhuman “ecological engineers.†Conservationists are delighted by the success of beaver reintroduction programs, but residents on the receiving end of beaver-related damage and safety hazards are beginning to find cause for complaint.…
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Snapshot: Fur seals at the beach close to the former whaling station … on South Georgia.
For several decades at the beginning of the twentieth century the remote island of South Georgia, approximately 1,400 kilometers east of the southern tip of South America, was the center of the global whaling and sealing industries.
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Snapshot: Invasive Tiger Mosquito at the Deutsches Museum
Yes, we’ve all heard about invasive species being one of the challenges of the future, but does it really concern us individually? It does—when it means that we are legally required to cut down old and beloved trees in our garden because they may be infested with the Asian long-horned beetle, or if our…
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Snapshot: Distant Transformations
by Maya Schmitt and Katrin Kleemann Close to Las Negras, southeast Spain, is a site of historical and geological significance. Our exploration through an old “Seifenlagerstätte†(placer deposit) stretch had us intrigued by its thousands of garnet minerals. These were spread out, attached or enclosed in rock showing different states of geology. For instance, enclosed…
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Snapshot: Food Markets, Yunnan, China
Locals in Dali, China, shop for food, carrying goods in baskets on their backs. Locally-grown rice, wheat, vegetables, and tobacco are brought weekly to the Monday market in the village of Shaping.Â
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Lunchtime Colloquia, Winter Semester 2015/2016
Lise Sedrez on “A Man, a Woman and an Island in Guanabara Bay: How Two Scientists Turned a Hydrobiology Station into a Pollution Monitoring Center in 1950s Rio de Janeiro” Kirsten Wehner on “Towards an Ecological Museology: Integrating ‘Nature’ and ‘Culture’ at the National Museum of Australia” Filippo Bertoni on “Extracting Life: Open…