Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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Paradigm Shifts in Environmental Thinking: Autonomous Nature by Carolyn Merchant
by Yan Gao Carolyn Merchant’s book Autonomous Nature traces paradigmatic shifts in environmental thinking from a long-term perspective. Derived from her ever-enduring interest in and perpetual investigations of chaos and complexity theories, Merchant probes into the roots and evolution of the terms natura naturans (“Nature naturing,€ or nature creating, evolving, and changing) and natura naturata…
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Making Tracks: Paula Ungar
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. “Walking the Line between Worlds€ By Paula Ungar The first thing I wrote of which I have clear memory is a short verse…
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Toward a Beautiful Rural Life
by Zhen Wang Jenny Chio’s book A Landscape of Travel: The Work of Tourism in Rural Ethnic China attracted me because of its connection to my current research project at the Rachel Carson Center. One of the reasons for this is that we share the same research area—southwest China. My own research focuses on the…
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Worldview: Taking the Venice Architecture Biennale as an Example
by Jeroen Oomen This post was first published on 21 November 2016 on the ENHANCE ITN website. “What is the environmental humanities?€ is a question that typically pops up whenever I care to explain that ENHANCE, the doctoral training network I am part of, stands for Environmental Humanities for a Concerned Europe. And in all…
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Worldview: Watch Your Step!
“Moss Conservation in Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland€ By Katrin Kleemann All photographs were taken by Katrin Kleemann and used here with her express permission. LakagÃgar is a fissure volcano in Iceland’s remote highlands that erupted in 1783–84 and left behind a landscape full of lava fields, now covered in lush green moss. Tourists can travel…
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Worldview: Berta Cáceres
“Let Us Wake Up, Humankind! Justice for Berta Cáceres and for All Environmental Activists Killed around the World€ By MarÃa Valeria Berros In our worldview, we are beings who come from the Earth, from the water, and from corn. The Lenca people are ancestral guardians of the rivers, in turn protected by the spirits of young…
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Making Tracks: Yan Gao
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. “Watermarks on My Path€ By Yan Gao When I started writing this article, my home city, Wuhan—situated at the confluence of the Yangzi…
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Bookshelf: The Troubled History of Environmentalism
By Bob Wilson The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation by Adam Rome The Light-Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000 by Michael Bess Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images by Finis Dunaway Why have Americans been unable or…