Category: Series
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…
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…
Fixing a Nation’s Plumbing I: India’s National River Linking Project
by Vikas Lakhani In 1946, British colonialists launched a grand scheme to cultivate groundnuts in the uninhabitable parts of Tanganyika, a former colony that corresponds to the mainland part of today’s United Republic of Tanzania. Under the leadership of the agronomist John Wakefield, the…
The Lager Beer Revolution in the United States
The Taproom is a monthly series that explores the rich history of all things beer. It is curated by Pavla Šimková. By Jana Weiß In November 2015, a record that had lasted 142 years was broken: for the first time since 1873, the peak number of…
The Last Kindred Spirit of Moths and Butterflies
Check out the first installment of this post, Insect Profile: The Apollo. “An interview with Andreas Segerer” by Susanne Schmitt and Birgit Müller We are standing in a hallway across from a hidden treasure: the world’s largest collection of butterflies and moths, holding about…
Insect Profile: The Apollo
*Featured image: Specimens of Parnassius Apollo in a collection case at the Zoologische Staatssammlung München. Photo: Susanne Schmitt. By Susanne Schmitt and Birgit Müller Classified as moderately endangered, Parnassius apollo is a species of butterfly that inhabits mountain meadows and rocky alpine sites. These creatures’…
Making Tracks: Jenny Carlson
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. *(Featured image: Farmland, Blacklands © Andrew Smith, licensed for reuse (CC BY-SA 2.0), via…
Fifty Years Ago, Cockchafers Belonged to Spring…
“The Cockchafer, Part 2” (In case you missed it, read part 1, Insect Profile: The Cockchafer here! *(Featured image by dbgg1979 [CC By 2.0], via Flickr) By Birgit Müller and Susanne Schmitt We met Ernst-Gerhard Burmeister at the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology where he has dedicated most of his…
Insect Profile: The Cockchafer
“The Cockchafer, Part 1” *(Featured image: Common Cockchafer (Maybug). Copyright Zoonar/Frank Hecker) By Birgit Müller and Susanne Schmitt On a warm night in May, the cockchafer crawls out of the earth for the first time to take flight into the bushes and trees. It has…
Making Tracks: Birgit Schneider
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 Birgit Schneider I have been interested in representations with a focus on…
The Birth and Quick Death of Canada’s First Commercial Brewery, 1671–1675
The Taproom is a monthly series that explores the rich history of all things beer. It is curated by Pavla Šimková. By Matthew Bellamy Few nations are more blessed by nature than Canada when it comes to brewing beer. The vast northern territory has ideal climatic…
Where Have All the Insects Gone?
For many of us, engaging with insects doesn’t extend much beyond swatting away flies and mosquitoes, or calling on bigger and braver friends to deposit unwanted “visitors” outside. And yet, as E.O. Wilson observed, it is we who are the visitors in “a primarily…
