Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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Losing Home: The Yi People and Environment in the Liangshan Region
by Zhen Wang Liangshan (凉山) is a mountainous region of 60,423 square km2 that occupies much of the southern part of Sichuan province, on the border with Yunnan province. It has the largest population of ethnic Yi nationally, totaling nearly 50% of the 4.5 million inhabitants in 2010. In recognition of the large percentage of…
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Uses of Environmental History: Stefania Barca
This is the second in a series of posts exploring the uses of environmental history. The series has been adapted from contributions to a roundtable forum published in the first issue of the new Journal for Ecological History, edited by the Renmin University’s Center for Ecological History. “On €˜The Political’ in Environmental History€ By Stefania Barca “Only mass social movements…
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Worldview: One Piece at a Time
Guest post by Judith Selby and Richard Lang Judith Selby and Richard Lang are artists who collaborate in an ongoing project to collect plastic along Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore. They also recount their adventures in Plastic Forever, the blog they jointly manage. This is a follow-up post to last week’s Snaphot on Seeing the Woods.…
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Making Tracks: Anitra Nelson
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. “Goolengook and Guernica€ By Anitra Nelson In the Guernica of today’s universal threat from future climate change, environmental campaigners fight for light-bulb suns,…
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The Uses of Environmental History: John R. McNeill
By John R. McNeill: Environmental or ecological historians do not “need to become more useful and practical€ in anything. They should feel free to be useless as regards global problems if they wish. If their motives for engaging in environmental history are nothing loftier than curiosity, that is no sin. The great majority of historical…
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Snapshot: Do You Speak Envhist?
Should professional historians maintain their independence and objectivity as researchers, or should they address the social use of their field? Are there fundamental conflicts between the two? Do environmental or ecological historians need to become more useful and practical in addressing such global problems as climate change, intensified food production, and biodiversity loss? If so,…
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Making Tracks: Paul Sutter
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 Paul Sutter There was nothing about my childhood that inclined me towards the environmental humanities—except, perhaps, the entire context in which I…
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Making Tracks: Franklin Ginn
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 Franklin Ginn Failure lies behind the trappings of academic success: words unwritten, words sunk without trace, applications rejected, snubs both subtle and…
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Worldview: Regressive Research Policy in Argentina
By Samantha Rothbart The National Scientific and Technical Research Council is in trouble. This was in the email sent to the RCC blog team by Carson alumna MarÃa Valeria Berros on 21st December 2016. She was standing alongside her fellow colleagues and scientists in Santa Fe, in dialogue with research fellows from all over the…