• Environmental Histories of Architecture

    Workshop Report (Rachel Carson Center, 28–29 June 2017). Written by Daniel A. Barber (University of Pennsylvania), Alexander von Humboldt Foundation advanced research fellow and former RCC visiting fellow. Daniel also organized the workshop. The relationship between environmental history and the history of the built environment has only recently begun to gain substantive attention in the…

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  • Household Consumption and Environmental Change in the Twentieth Century

    30–31 May 2017, Bologna, Italy In May 2017, the University of Bologna’s Department of History and Culture hosted a workshop entitled “Household Consumption and Environmental Change in the Twentieth Century.” The workshop was co-convened by RCC alumnus Giacomo Parrinello (Sciences Po, Paris) and professor of contemporary history Paolo Capuzzo (University of Bologna). The event was co-sponsored…

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  • Worldview: Iran Hosts Second International Seminar on Environment, Culture, and Religion (Part 1)

    International Efforts to Mobilize Religions in the Cause of Conservation Part 1. Tehran “Religion is a powerful social force and for decades diverse actors who understand this have been engaged in earnest efforts to motivate and mobilize religious individuals and groups to construct environmentally sustainable societies. Although broad evidence suggests that these efforts have had…

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  • Transitions in Energy Landscapes and Everyday Life in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

    27–29 April 2017, Munich, Germany A report on the workshop sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), Rachel Carson Center, and the Deutsches Museum (Germany), convened by Heather Chappells (University of British Columbia), Vanessa Taylor (University of Greenwich), Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck College), Helmuth Trischler (Deutsches Museum), and Christof Mauch (Rachel Carson Center). By Vanessa Taylor…

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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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  • Photo of the Week – Grace Karskens

    The Penrith Lakes Scheme area near Sydney, Australia, taken from Hawkesbury Lookout. The photo shows the surviving river flats and farms, the open cut gravel pits, the new lakes forming, the Nepean River on the right, and the foothills of the Lapstone Monocline (the Blue Mountains) in the foreground. (Please click the photo for a…

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  • Worldview: China’s Colorful Future

    Post by Fei Sheng “Yellow” has a unique meaning in the Chinese conception of environment and society. We have always believed that our civilization—which, despite small interruptions, has never been significantly disrupted during the last 4,000 or even 5,000 years—is derived from the soil of our mother land, the Yellow Highland (Loess Plateau), and from…

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