RCC Newsletter, Issue 08
October 2011
28.10.2011
Dear Friends of the Rachel Carson Center,
The RCC is always busy, but this newsletter comes to you at what is perhaps one of the busiest times in the year, with the new university term just getting underway. We have already enjoyed two sessions of the thought-provoking and exciting Lunchtime Colloquium—this time with speakers from Colombia, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland. Also the opening of our Green Visions film series drew an impressive crowd to Munich’s largest cultural center, the Gasteig. For more on recent events, upcoming calls for papers, and news from our fellows and staff, please read on.
- A Summer for Young Scholars at the RCC: This August, the RCC played host to the inaugural Global Environments Summer Academy, a course for future environmental leaders which was part of the Munich International Summer University. Twenty-one students from all over the world moved into the RCC in August as they delved into the human dimensions of global environmental change. Visit the course website for more information; in addition, if you are interested in participating in GESA 2012, click here for a pre-application form.
In June, the RCC took doctoral students to the canals of Venice for a summer school on “Water-Culture-Politics” that the RCC organized in conjunction with the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH). Twenty students from all over Europe joined mentors including RCC Director Christof Mauch, and Carson Fellow Don Worster for six days of study and hands-on learning at Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani. - Sustainability: Merely a buzzword for the twenty-first century or a revolutionary new way of thinking? The Sustainability Lecture Series: Hope, Change, Action, sponsored by the RCC and various area higher education institutions, tackles this very topic in the coming months with presentations on sustainable land use, climate change, and renewable energy sources.
- The RCC German-language book series, “Umwelt and Gesellschaft” (Environment and Society), published by Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, has been gaining momentum in the last year. Cornel Zwierlein recently published his expansive study on fire and safety in the Early Modern Period (Der gezähmte Prometheus. Feuer und Sicherheit zwischen Früher Neuzeit und Moderne) as volume 3 of the series. Two more manuscripts are currently in publication.
- The RCC—Hope for a Greener Future: The Carson Center has been praised in a recently released publication of the German Advisory Council on Global Change as a shining example of a German research center employing an interdisciplinary focus for environmental studies.
- Carson Fellows’ Research in Print: Two book manuscripts which are (to a considerable extent) the result of a fellowship at the RCC have now been published. Reinhold Reith released his Umweltgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit (Early Modern Environmental History) in October 2011, and Sherry Johnson’s new book, Climate, Catastrophe, and Crisis in the Atlantic World in the Age of Revolution, is being released by the University of North Carolina Press in November 2011.
- Insights into the RCC: RCC Director Christof Mauch, Research Fellow Julia Herzberg, and Carson Fellow Stefania Gallini were featured in the most recent issue of LMU Insights. “The Power of Nature” by Martin Thurau profiled Center activities as well as the research projects of Mauch, Herzberg, and Gallini.
- Recent Events at the RCC:
Due to global warming, the disappearance of coastal areas is an increasing threat; many communities are faced with losing their homelands and becoming “eco-refugees.” The conference “Environmental Change and Migration in Historical Perspective” aimed to historically contextualize climate-driven migration and to explore the myriad factors which create the need to flee.
Green, leafy forests conjure up idyllic images—yet, the politics of forest use and neighboring agriculture areas can be contentious and even violent. An RCC-sponsored panel, “Contested Environments: The Political Ecology of Agrarian Change and Forest Conservation,” at the German Anthropological Association’s Annual Meeting offered case studies from over a dozen researchers on the complex politics of forestry. - Upcoming Events at the RCC:
Lunchtime Colloquium meets every Thursday from 12 to 2 p.m. in the lecture room of the Katholische Hochschulgemeinde (Leopoldstr. 11). Click here for a complete schedule.
31 Oct: Realizing Utopia: Ecovillage Endeavors and Explorations (Workshop)
3 Nov: Die Zukunft des Grünen / The Future of Green (Panel Discussion)
9 Nov: Yellow Cake: Die Lüge von Sauberen Energie (Film Series)
29 Nov: Konzept Nachhaltigkeit / The Concept of Sustainability (Sustainability Lecture Series)
07 Dec: Up the Yangtze (Film Series) - Ongoing Calls for Papers:
21. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Technikgeschichte (Twenty-First Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Technology )´
Trading Environments: Commercial Knowledge and Environmental Transformations - Fellows’ and Alumni News: Carson and LMU Fellows have once again been travelling the globe, with Martin Knoll speaking in Paris, Ingo Heidbrink in Yakutsk, Russia, Paul Josephson in Brazil, and Frank Uekötter heading to Hiroshima, Japan. Carson Fellow Reinhold Leinfelder had two articles on the Anthropocene featured in major German newspapers, the Frankfürter Allgemeiner Zeitung and the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Finally, Marc Elie is editing a special edition of the journal Laboratorium on trash and waste; see his announcement for the call for papers.
- Staff News: Directors Mauch and Trischler have been appointed to prestigious academic boards and/or prize committees. Helmuth Trischler is now a member of the Medical Museion Advisory Board at the University of Copenhagen. Christof Mauch is now part of the Selection Committee of the Annette Maier Research Award (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation).
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