Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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Snapshot: A Living, Breathing Thing
Living walls aren’t just a wonderful way to brighten up urban spaces—greening grey walls has benefits inside and out. Green walls help protect building façades, reduce noise, and make structures more energy efficient, and they improve biodiversity and outdoor air quality, and our well-being in general. Living walls and vertical gardens have become increasingly popular over the years—thanks to innovative and striking designs by people…
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Snapshot: “energie.wenden (energy.transitions)”
We need to transition towards more sustainable energy systems! But what is keeping us from making the necessary changes? Technology? Politics? Psychology? Following the successful exhibition on the Anthropocene, the Deutsches Museum and the RCC are once again teaming up for another large exhibition. This time, the title is “energie.wenden†(energy transitions) and it focuses…
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Snapshot: Mini Workshop on Sub-Saharan African History
Last week, the RCC hosted a group of African scholars, along with their mentors, to discuss and support proposals for a postdoctoral fellowship grant from the Volkswagen Foundation. In a three-day series of mini-workshops, the teams discussed their intended projects with RCC director Christof Mauch, RCC students and fellows. Also in attendance was current fellow…
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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…