RCC Newsletter, Issue 17

Dear Friends of the RCC,

More than 500 participants are expected for “Circulating Natures: Water—Food—Energy,” the seventh biennial conference of the European Society for Environmental History. Preparations are in full swing and we hope to see you 21–24 August in Munich for ESEH 2013!

1. In May, the RCC partnered with LMU and TU Munich faculty to host three lectures on the theme “Environmental Ethics, Politics, and Movements.” Friday 3 May at the LMU Center for Mathematical Philosophy, the RCC heard a talk by John Broome (Oxford) on the public morality of climate change. Philosopher Warwick Fox visited the center on 8 May to discuss his theory of responsive cohesion as a foundational value for an ethics relevant to interpersonal relations and decision-making in the natural and built environment. Jeffrey Hou (University of Washington-Seattle, USA) spoke about Seattle’s community gardens, design from below, and “insurgent placemaking” to a standing-room only audience in the Vorhoelzer Forum as the final lecture in the series on 24 May. The event was co-sponsored with Professor Stefanie Hennecke (TU-Munich Architecture) and Ella van der Haide of Urbane-Gärten München.
2. 15 May the RCC coordinated a visit with Professor Liz Safran from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon (USA) with the LMU International Office to discuss student participation in the "Year of Study in Munich" program and environmental studies curriculum design. As part of Safran’s visit, Professor Anke Friedrich (LMU, Geology) led a geology excursion for a group of Carson Fellows and PhD students, who learned to read the sedimentary layers of the Bavarian Tertiary molasse along the Ammer river. 
3. From rivers as a geological force, the RCC and the Renmin University of China Center for Ecological History turned their attention to “Disasters Wet and Dry” at a joint conference in Beijing. Carson alumni Donald Worster and Shen Hou, future Carson Fellow Mingfang Xia, and Christof Mauch convened this event 23–26 May 2013. Record levels of flooding in Central Europe the last week of May formed a background for discussions during the conference. The RCC plans annual events with the center in Renmin, with a conference on “the City and the Countryside” scheduled for 2014.
4. The RCC hosted a delegation to Munich led by Harold Trujillo from the Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia as part of the group’s DAAD-funded visit to German universities. During a workshop on 28 May, Juan Sanchez and David Tóbon (Medellín) presented research on rural development and environmental economics and exchanged ideas with Carson Fellows and PhD students. The event preceded cooperation the following week in the inaugural SOLCHA postgraduate summer school at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota, where contributors met to discuss the future RCC volume on the environmental history of Latin America.
5. The RCC and the Humboldt Network sponsored an international workshop 14–16 June on "Culture and the Anthropocene," that drew geologists, literary critics, historians, and scholars from many other fields to explore the cultural dimension of the concept "Anthropocene." 
6. June also featured the national week of sustainability in Germany. RCC Director Christof Mauch delivered the fourth annual Carlowitz lecture (video in German) on "Excursions in Space and Time: a Historical Perspective on Sustainability" to the Advisory Council on Sustainable Development on 19 June in Freiberg. The RCC's Annka Liepold led a coalition of Munich groups that hosted the Night of Sustainability that took place Friday 21 June.  
7. Publications and Calls for Papers
• A call for proposals for a 2014 workshop on “The Greening of Everyday Life” has been issued with a submission deadline of 15 July 2013 by co-conveners John Meyer and Jens Kersten.
• A special section, “The World with Us: The State of American Environmental History” in the Journal of American History 100: 1 (June 2013) features a state-of-the-field essay by Paul Sutter and is accompanied with six responses, including brief pieces by from Carson Alumnus Bron Taylor, future Carson Fellow Gregg Mitman, and RCC director Christof Mauch.
• Two new issues of RCC Perspectives have been published and are available online in PDF and e-book formats: 2013, Issue 1: "Eco-Images: Historical Views and Political Strategies," edited by Gisela Parak; and 2013, Issue 2: "Energy Transitions in History: Global Cases of Continuity and Change," edited by Richard W. Unger.
8. Fellows, Alumni, and Staff News
• As usual, Carson Fellows have been busy presenting their research at conferences and workshops around the world. Carson Fellow Erdenetuya Urtnast gave a talk at Bonn University on “Beyond a Culture of Nomadic Herders.” Carson Fellow and Alumni co-President Lawrence Culver spoke at the German Society for American Studies (DGfA) meeting in Erlangen and also at Georgetown University, sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Historical Institute.
• Carson Fellow Jan-Henrik Meyer, the RCC’s Wilko Graf von Hardenberg, and other members of the RCC community have published a raft of new books and articles. For abstracts of their work, visit the Research Roundup on our blog, Seeing the Woods.
• Congratulations to Professor Eveline Dürr (LMU-Ethnologie), who has been named LMU Carson Research Professor for 2013–2014.
• RCC Director Christof Mauch has been named Honorary Professor of Renmin University, Beijing.
• RCC Director Helmuth Trischler has been appointed Head of the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Maritime Museum (Deutsches Schiffahrt-Museum) in Bremerhaven.
• Congratulations to RCC Alumnus Anthony Carrigan, who has accepted a new position at Leeds University starting in September.
9. Upcoming Events:
• 4 July, Kenichi Matsui on "The Ethical and Legal Implications of Traditional Knowledge Studies,"Lunchtime Colloquium
• 11 July, Sainath Suryanarayanan, "Bee(ing) Human: A Social History of Collapsing Beehives in the United States," Lunchtime Colloquium
• 11 July, Film Screening and Discussion, "Waste Land," Green Visions Film Series
• 18 July, Jan-Henrik Meyer on "When Europe Went Green: Transnational Networks and the Origins of European Environmental Policy," Lunchtime Colloquium
• 19-21 July, internal workshop on "Studying the Environment - Working across Disciplines," Kochel-am-See
• 25 July, Vipul Singh on "Controlling the River: Diara Land and Social Disparity in the Mid-Gangetic Basin," Lunchtime Colloquium
• 1 August, Mei Xueqin on "Relying on Nature While Maintaining Tradition: Pollution and Restoration of the Thames in the 19th Century," Lunchtime Colloquium

Stay in touch with the RCC via our website, Facebook page, blog, and Twitter feed.

Best wishes,

The Rachel Carson Center