RCC Newsletter, Issue 05

Spring has not only brought Munich beautiful weather and blossoming flowers, but also a host of new Carson Fellows and an exciting schedule of events for the coming months, including a new series of Lunchtime Colloquium talks, a range of lectures and conferences, and our first film screening at Gasteig, a prominent cultural center in Munich.

1. Land use in Brazil, scarcity and abundance in America, and the relationship between humans and animals in Germany are just some of the highlights of this season’s Lunchtime Colloquium schedule. Click here for a complete overview.
   
   
2. In the RCC’s first public film event, director Michael Nash will be screening his documentary Climate Refugees on 5 May at Gasteig in Munich. Nash will be on hand for a discussion session with film clips earlier in the day and will attend the evening showing. Admission to the event is only 3 Euros and all are welcome to come.
   
   
3. Recent RCC Events:
   
   How do societies react and interact with natural disasters? This burgeoning field in environmental history was the topic of a panel entitled “Between Disciplines, Transcending Borders: Natural Disasters” at the Historian’s Symposium in Berlin sponsored by the RCC, and featuring several staff and fellows.
   
   Peeking behind the Iron Curtain, “Environmental History as Eastern European Regional History from Industrialisation to Post-Socialism,” co-sponsored by the Collegium Carolinum, explored the effect of socialism on developing landscapes, environmental movements, and nature tourism in Eastern Europe. 
   
   In conjunction with the RCC’s digital portal project, a workshop entitled “Sources for Corporate Environmental History” linked the world of academia with local corporations in order to further augment the portal’s source collection.
   
   Deified—Damned—Depleted: Not the RCC itself, thankfully, but the topic of an innovative workshop hosted by the Deutsches Museum in collaboration with the RCC which examined the role of household appliances in light of changing patterns of energy consumption.
   
   January was an appropriate month for a conference entitled “Exploring Ice and Snow in the Cold War.” A range of presentations moved from cryohistory in the Arctic Sea to ‘Project Ice-Worm’ in Greenland and included a host of other icy panoramas in the northern hemisphere.
   
   A closer look at the theoretical considerations that underpin environmental humanities was provided by a workshop entitled “Is Complexity the New Framework for the Study of Global Life?”
   
   Bringing together the natural sciences and the humanities, the RCC sponsored an innovative, interdisciplinary workshop entitled “Sickness, Hunger, War, and Religion” jointly with the APPA (Society for Anthropology's Working Group for Paleoanthropology and Prehistoric Anthropology).
   
   Horned goats, mink farms, the history of domesticated animals, and an archeological examination of Egyptian animals were all discussed in the context of the doctoral workshop “The Human-Animal Relationship,” which was a cooperation between Bündnis, Mensch und Tier and the RCC.
   
   
4. The RCC is pleased to announce a new internship program, which was launched with the arrival of our first 2011 intern, Isabelle Plessis. Interested applicants, please check out the description of the program on our website.
   
   
5. Ongoing Calls for Papers:
   
   Frost, Ice, and Snow: Cold Climate in Russian History
   
   Hazardous Chemicals: Agents of Risk and Change (1800-2000)
   
   
6. Upcoming Events at the RCC – May and June:
   
   17 May: John Muir in the New World (Film Screening)
   
   27-29 May: Re/Cycling Histories: Users and the Paths to Sustainability in Everyday Life (Workshop)
   
   06-07 June: Neurohistory (Workshop)
   
   23-25 June: History Underground: Environmental Perspectives on Mining (Conference)
   
   
7. Updates on Carson Fellows:
   
   Don Worster’s Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir will be available paperback from Oxford University Press in April 2011.
   
   Lawrence Culver is the chair of the program committee for the 2012 American Society for Environmental History conference to be held in Madison, Wisconsin.
   
   Shane McCorristine is scheduled to present a variety of papers in the coming months. In addition, he has a host of new publication projects – check out Fellows’ News for more information.

As always, to stay up to date on the RCC, check out our website, our Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter.

Best wishes,

The Rachel Carson Center

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