Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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What does it mean to live a “not quite fatal†existence?
By Sadie E. Hale Lockdown in most European countries ended two months ago; but as I write this, cases are rising again, and the sense of impending confinement informs my thoughts. Questions of what constitutes a “good life†and, more chillingly, a “good death†have become more urgent during the pandemic. Yet there is a…
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Cicadian Rhythms: How Suburbs Saved – and Threaten – the US’s 17-Year Cicadas
Post by Christopher Sellers With piercing red eyes and a song like the soundtrack from a 50’s science-fiction film, the 17-year cicadas have stormed up out of the soils of the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. for their single month or so of adult life. Though their brief otherworldly chorus is, in human terms, ancient,…
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Learning to Love Pesticides: A Look at Popular American Attitudes
Post by Michelle Mart Since the publication of Silent Spring in 1962, there have been numerous popular and scholarly studies of pesticide use in the United States. Environmentalists and others have credited Rachel Carson with awakening people to the dangers of overuse of these chemicals. Such praise is warranted, and it is clear that Silent…
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Assessing the Success of Silent Spring
Post by Katie Ritson, posted in conjunction with the publication of the RCC Perspectives issue, “Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring: Encounters and Legacies” Working for a center named after Rachel Carson and in the fiftieth anniversary year of her book Silent Spring, it’s easy to wax fulsome on the great woman and the role she played…
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Five Minutes with a Fellow: Amy Hay
Five Minutes with a Fellow offers a brief glimpse into what inspires researchers in the environmental humanities. The interviews feature current and former fellows from the Rachel Carson Center. Amy Hay is an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas-Pan American. Her research examines the intersections of health, the environment, and public policy;…
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Fifty Years of Silent Spring
Post by Arielle Helmick Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published fifty years ago today. Having taken her name, we at the RCC would like to take a look back at Carson’s legacy, in terms of what she has meant for the Center, as well as what positive environmental change has happened in the last fifty…