Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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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…
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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…
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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.
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For a Dignified Life
Hazardous Hope Part 1 “Remediation Practices in Ecuador€ by Maximilian Feichtner (*Featured image © Theresa Leisgang) Like a tiny mushroom, hope is growing in the once-lush rain forest of the Amazon in northeastern Ecuador: bioremediation as a solution to the extensive environmental contamination. It is a hazardous hope, however. Hazardous because it relates to a dangerous…
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Hazardous Hope—The Debate
“An Academic Play in One Act€ by Simone M. Müller, Ayushi Dhawan, Maximilian Feichtner, and Jonas Stuck [Four scholars stare at their computers. They enter the virtual stage through Skype. It’s a global conversation crossing 3,5 continents, 4 countries, and 3 time zones: it’s the middle of the night in one place, early morning in…
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Eden Park: The Birth of an Iconic Midwestern Municipal Park
*Featured image: Eden Park reservoir, Cincinnati, Ohio. Image courtesy of The New York Public Library. Guest post by Kathleen Smythe As you walk into Eden Park, one of the first things you encounter is the remains of a double basin reservoir—its walls more often than not being scaled by recreational climbers. The reservoir was removed…
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Making Tracks: Unsettling Landscapes and Imaginations
By Tony Weis I come from the settler-colonial nation of Canada, in a part of southwestern Ontario that sits upon the traditional territories of the Attawandaron, Anishnaabee, Haudenosaunee, and Leni-Lunaape Peoples. Today, nine First Nations reserves together control just over one percent of all land in southwestern Ontario. The landscape must have been beautiful, and…
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Unsettling Landscapes and Imaginations
In the “Making Tracks€ series, RCC fellows and alumni present their experiences in environmental humanities, retracing the paths that led them to the Rachel Carson Center. For more information, please click here. By Tony Weis *All images courtesy of the author I come from the settler-colonial nation of Canada, in a part of southwestern Ontario that…
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Fixing a Nation’s Plumbing II: What We Choose to Ignore
by Vikas Lakhani This is the second post about India’s National River Linking Project. Read the first part here. As has been clear in the previous post, I see several fundamental objections to the NRLP. First and foremost, environmentalists have rightly raised serious concerns about the ecological consequences of this grand scheme. They argue that…