Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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The Making of a Mountain: Constructing the Untersberg Mountain as a Contemporary Spiritual Destination
By: Robert Baumgartner While waiting for the train back to Munich at the end of our place-based workshop in Berchtesgaden National Park last summer, I browsed the local station bookshop’s section on local tourism, culture, and folklore. With the National Park becoming an ever more popular tourist destination, it was not surprising to see tables filled…
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Photographs of Turgoyak: Exploring Spiritual Awareness and Eco-resistance
Guest author Francesc Bellaubi is a senior researcher at South Urals State University and is currently collaborating with the chair of environmental ethics from the University of Alcalá de Henares, Spain. He has a background in environmental geology and engineering and experience in providing technical assistance to development agencies, NGOs, research institutes, and civil organizations, with special…
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CfP: Irregular Ecologies: The Environmental Impact of Unconventional Warfare
Workshop, 20.07.2019 – 21.07.2019 Location: Florianopolis, Brazil Conveners: Christof Mauch (Rachel Carson Center, LMU Munich) and Javier Puente (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) Warfare seldom affects humans alone. While inflicting devastating effects on societies, armed conflicts also shape economic, cultural, sociopolitical, and ecological transformations. As violence territorializes, armed conflicts begin to affect the ecologies and livelihoods…
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Call for Papers: The Environmental History of the Pacific World
Conference – Sun Yat Sen University, Guangzhou, China 24 May – 26 May 2018 Location: Sun Yat Sen University, Guangzhou, China Sponsors: The Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich; Department of History and The Center for Oceania Studies, Sun Yat Sen University, Guangzhou; The Center for Ecological History, Renmin University of China, Beijing.…
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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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Making Tracks: Sigurd Bergmann
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. “Religion as a Creative Skill in Environmental Change—Exploring the Entanglement of Images of God, Nature, and the Sacred” by Sigurd Bergmann The thread…
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CfP: Religion in the Anthropocene: Challenges, Idolatries, Transformations
Fifth International Conference of the European Forum for the Study of Religion and Environment, 14–17 May 2015. The Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society is collaborating with the European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment (EFSRE) to bring you a conference on “Religion in the Anthropocene.”
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Photo of the Week: Sigurd Bergmann
Holy places and sites are called “mazar” in the popular Islam of Kyrgyzstan (a synthesis of traditional “immigrated” Islam and older shamanic folk religion). The Mazar Manjyly Ata is one of the largest in the country; it is about half size of Munich’s English Garden. Holy trees, wells, and chapels have been (and are still)…