Disasters Wet and Dry: Rivers, Floods, and Droughts in World History

Conference

23.05.2013 – 26.05.2013

An international conference to be held in Beijing, at Renmin University of China, May 23-26, 2013

Co-Sponsored by the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich, and the Center for Ecological History, Renmin University of China

Conveners: Mingfeng Xia (Center for Ecological History, Remin University of China), Christof Mauch (RCC), Donald Worster (University of Kansas/Remin University of China)

Program (pdf, 146 KB)

Too much, too little of a good thing? Water is one of the basic elements of life on earth, yet again and again it has been either in short supply or overabundant plenty. The result has been a string of environmental disasters that have prompted bursts of migration and adaptation, along with projects of flood control or water enhancement. It seems that societies can never find the perfect balance.

This small workshop-like conference will explore across national boundaries and throughout the human past the social, political, cultural, and economic effects of flooding rivers and cycles of drought. We invite scholars in history and related disciplines to submit paper proposals on such questions as these: How have different societies understood drought and flood, and how have traditional knowledge and modern science shaped social understanding of those phenomena? What strategies of coping have societies pursued, and where did they succeed and where did they fail? What kinds of community relief have they devised, short-term or long-term? How have natural disasters influenced the development of civilizations? How may human actions have created conditions for disastrous floods and droughts?

Paper proposals for individual submissions should be one‐page long (or about 300 words) and include a title and a one‐ or two‐page CV. The deadline for consideration is 1 January 2013. Successful proposals will be announced by 1 February, and complete drafts of papers will be required by 1 May.

Download the call for papers (pdf, 100 KB).