RCC Newsletter, Issue 20

Dear Friends of the RCC,

We are delighted to announce that the RCC received an unqualified positive report from the evaluation committee appointed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF). This positive evaluation has assured the RCC's future in Germany's research landscape: the RCC will receive federal funding for a further six years (until mid-2021) and will subsequently also remain an integral part of LMU Munich and its networks. Thank you to all those who have supported us over the past five years, both here at the RCC and worldwide!

1. The RCC's collaboration with diverse Beijing universities continues. The second annual workshop between the RCC and the Center for Ecological History at Renmin University, entitled 'The Country and the City,' took place in June. Following this workshop, at the invitation of the President of the Jiangxi University for Finance and Economics (JUFE) in Nanchang, RCC Director Christof Mauch toured the Jiangxi Province with two leading environmental historians, Don Worster and Bill Cronon. And finally, three leading Chinese environmental historians from Beijing universities are currently in residence at the RCC: Maohong Bao (Peking University), Xueqin Mei (Tsinghua University), and Mingfang Xia (Renmin University).
   
   
2. RCC Perspectives has published two new volumes:
   
   “Asian Environments: Connections across Borders, Landscapes, and Times,” edited by Ursula Münster, Shiho Satsuka, and Gunnel Cederlöf, offers insights into similarities and differences in the ways people in Asia have tried to master and control the often unpredictable and volatile environments of which they were part.
   
   “Minding the Gap: Working Across Disciplines in Environmental Studies,” edited by Robert Emmett and Frank Zelko, presents the experiences of a range of scholars in the environmental humanities, all of whom have contributed in various ways to cross-disciplinary projects. The essays consider what it means to work across disciplines, what kinds of obstacles prevent cross-disciplinary work, and how universities might react to changing demands.
   
   
3. A new RCC special issue of Global Environment was also published. Entitled “Hazardous Substances: Perceptions, Regulations, Consequences” and edited by Paul Erker, the special issue focuses on the interaction between the growing presence of hazardous substances in the economy and the environment, and the cultural, scientific, regulatory, and legal responses by modern society to these hazards.
   
   
4. The Environment & Society Portal has a brand new exhibition to discover: “Representing Environmental Risk in the Landscapes of US Militarization,” curated by Hsuan L. Hsu. It focuses on artwork and other representational media that attempt to educate audiences by depicting places and populations subject to the environmental harm caused by US military activities. The Portal also has a new project, Anthropocene Milestones: Illustrating the Path to the Age of Humans, in which comic strips relating to the upcoming 'Welcome to the Anthropocene - The Earth in Our Hands' exhibition at the Deutsches Museum will be added weekly to the Portal blog.
   
   
5. The RCC’s certificate program in Environmental Studies has been passed by the LMU Advisory Senate. This gives the program official standing and allows students from other universities participating in the program to enroll at LMU and use the university's infrastructure. Students from the program also participated in a recent 'place-based' workshop; you can read more about their experience on our blog.
   
   
6. We are pleased to announce the graduation of our first cohort of doctoral scholars from our Doctoral Program, 'Environment and Society.' Seven candidates have completed their degrees in the last year in subjects including American cultural history, sociology, history, and geology.
   
   
7. Recent events:
   
   Scholars from nine countries met last week in Gran Paradiso, Italy at 'The Nature State Workshop.' This workshop dealt with the role nature conservation plays in the development of the state, that peculiar form of divination whereby the state endeavors to produce a nature based on what its experts perceive to be nature’s blueprint.
   
   The RCC sent a delegation to exhibit the RCC Perspectives series and the Environment & Society Portal at the recent Second World Congress of Environmental History, held in Guimarães, Portugal. And, of course, a large number of RCC fellows and alumni also participated in the congress, which honored RCC Advisory Board Chair and ICEHO President, Jane Carruthers, for her many contributions to the field of environmental history.
   
   A recent workshop, 'The Greening of Everyday Life: Reimagining Environmentalism in Postindustrial Societies,' focused on the normative implications of everyday material practices for environmental action. Participants discussed how to approach the political challenges of environmental sustainability through changes in everday behaviors.
   
   A number of RCC staff, fellows, and alumni spoke at recent events in Zurich. These events - a seminar entitled "Understanding Ecology through the Humanities: From the Wild to Post-Collapse," and a symposium on "Preparing for Post-Collapse? Implementing Environmental Humanities" - were organized by Marcus Hall and Patrick Kupper, with the aim of drawing attention to the environmental humanities in Switzerland.
   
   The RCC supported the recent annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture, and Environment entitled 'Framing Nature: Signs, Stories, and Ecologies of Meaning,' as part of its collaboration with KAJAK, the Estonian Center for Environmental History. Academic Program Director Rob Emmett and Carson Fellow Nicole Seymour gave talks at the conference.
   
   The RCC sponsored this year’s Munich Spring School, “Science, Environment, Infrastructure, and Technology—History of Science in Central and Eastern Europe.” The school invited graduate students conducting research into science and technology and environmental history from Ukraine, Finland, Hungary, Germany, Slovakia, Italy, and Lithuania.
   
   
8. Upcoming Events:
   
   24 July - Sherilyn MacGregor on "Heat and Light: Why Environmentalism (Still) Needs Feminism" (Lunchtime Colloquium)
   
   31 July - Markus Wilczek on "When Our Future Is at Stake: A Poetics of Radioactivity" (Lunchtime Colloquium)
   
   4-5 Aug - The Global Environmental History of World War I in Perspective (Conference, Georgetown University, USA)
   
   7-8 Aug - Environmentalism from Below: Appraising the Efficacy of Small-Scale and Subaltern Environmentalist Organizations (Workshop, University of Alberta, Canada)
   
   10-12 Sept - Bellies, Bodies, "Policey": Embodied Environments Between Catastrophes and Control (Conference, University of Tallinn, Estonia)
   
   25-27 Sept - Scarcity and Environment in History and Literature  (Workshop)
   
   
9. Staff News: The RCC is pleased to welcome two new staff members. Former RCC intern Stephanie Hood has joined as an editor, and Gerhard Schönhofer has taken up the position of IT administrator. In addition, two interns have joined the staff: Abigael Bongaarts and Oliver Liebig. RCC Director Christof Mauch was invited to speak at and participate in a workshop at Renmin University in China; he has also been appointed to the new International Advisory Board of the New Center for International Environmental History at Peking University.
   
   
10. Fellows News: John Sandlos has received a research award; Sigurd Bergmann has published a new book; John Agbonifo is helping to found the African Network of Environmental Humanities; Angela Kreutz has been awarded a DAAD postdoctoral exchange grant; Luke Keogh has been awarded postdoctoral funding by the Gerda Henkel Foundation; Robert Gioielli has published a new book and has been awarded a Rockefeller Archive Center Research Grant; and Ingo Heidbrink has been elected an Associate Member of the International Polar Heritage Committee.
    
    As always, to stay up to date on the RCC, check out our website, our Facebook page, and our blog, or follow us on Twitter.

    Best wishes,

    The Rachel Carson Center