Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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Exploring Health–Nutrition–Ecology Relationships and Resilience through Food-Farming Practices in Thailand
By Judith Bopp: The word Lebensmittel, one of several words for food in German, translates as “means to life†in English. This concept illustrates that supplying the body with nutritional and suitable foods is the key to maintaining vitality and overall well-being. Food–health linkages have already been recognized within scientific communities (cf. Schnitter and Berry…
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Sourdough Cultures
By: Matthew Morse Booker Introduction: An Embodied Multispecies Environmental Humanities Experience As one of the first Alumni Fellows at the Rachel Carson Center (RCC), I wanted to return something to the remarkable community of RCC staff, students, and fellows. In North Carolina I am part of the Sourdough Project, a global public science experiment using…
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A Fluid History of Wisconsin Breweries
By Doug Hoverson During my research for Land of Amber Waters: The History of Brewing in Minnesota, a retired employee of the Theo. Hamm Brewing Co. in St. Paul told me: “Beer is 97 percent water, and the other three percent is none of your damn business.â€
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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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Empire in a Bottle: Tales of a Beer Historian
By Malcolm F. Purinton “Why don’t you write your literature review about alcohol?†my African colonialism professor asked me during my master’s degree. “I can do that?!†I replied. The possibility of researching and writing on the history of beer and alcohol was, honestly, mind-blowing.
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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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Nurturing My Greens with High-Tech? Reflections on Vertical Farming and the PlantCube
by Marlen Elders When I first saw designs for the plantCube, a smart, fully automated machine for producing perfect vegetables, it seemed more like a high-fashion kitchen device than a sustainable alternative for growing vegetables. The plantCube was created by Munich-based start-up agrilution, whose cofounder, Maximilian Lössl, spoke with us at a Tuesday Discussion at…
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Snapshot: “Consuming the World†workshop, RCC, 11–12 March 2016
The workshop “Consuming the World: Eating and Drinking in Culture, History, and Environment†took place at the Rachel Carson Center on 11–12 March and brought together scholars from a range of disciplines for two days of discussions on food, culture, history, and the environment. In addition to the papers from participants, there was also a…
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Student Research: Food Waste
by Sibylle Zavala (with Ramona Mayr and Thomas Müller), Environmental Studies Certificate Program students Our final project, and that of our fellow students, was pioneering work. As a biologist, an interculturalist, and an environmental planner, we formed a rather interdisciplinary group. We wondered what we could work on that would encompass sustainability across our three fields of…