RCC Newsletter, Issue 18

Dear Friends of the RCC,

1. The RCC and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) hosted the 7th biennial conference of the European Society for Environmental History, “Circulating Natures: Water – Food – Energy,” in Munich on 21–24 August, 2013. The largest ESEH meeting of its kind brought well over 700 people to Munich for four days of concurrent sessions and special events. Some of the highlights included excursions to Chiemsee and the Isar River, a Friday night plenary speech by food scholar Marion Nestle, and an unforgettable awards banquet at the Augustiner Keller on Saturday night. Sample photos from ESEH 2013 are available online. As the host and main organizer, the RCC also sponsored pre- and post-conference workshops that extended ESEH 2013 into a memorable week of programs:
• A special one-day workshop on 20 August, “The Edges of Environmental History,” honored the work of historian Jane Carruthers, President of the International Consortium of Environmental History Organisations (ICEHO) and current Chair of the RCC Advisory Board. Almost one hundred scholars from 30 different countries gathered to explore the “edges” of environmental history through papers inspired by Carruthers’ work. An issue of RCC Perspectives of the same title with paintings by artist Mandy Martin will be launched at the World Congress of Environmental History, 7–14 July 2014 in Guimarães, Portugal.
• On 21 August, outgoing ESEH Secretary Phia Steyn convened an inaugural ESEH Writing and Publication Workshop, which featured presentations by the RCC’s Katie Ritson and incoming ESEH President Dolly Jørgensen on writing environmental history for publication in English.
• On 25 August, climate migration researchers met to establish common ground on an international scale for the workshop “One Concept of Environmental Migration? Bridging Disciplinary Approaches within the Humanities,” sponsored by COST, the RCC Climates of Migration project, and convened by the RCC’s Rebecca Hofmann and Marco Armiero, Director of the Environmental Humanities Lab at KTH-Stockholm.
2. RCC Advisory Board Vice Chair Verena Winiwarter has been nominated for a prestigious “Austrian of the Year” Award—the first time an environmental historian has been recognized in this way. Take a moment to vote online by 11 October to support Verena and environmental history.
3. The ESEH Summer School “Mountains Across Borders” was held 17–21 August in Lavin, Switzerland, organized by Marcus Hall and Carson alumnus Patrick Kupper, with over a dozen graduate students and ten established scholars from Europe, the United States, and China. The program foregrounded the challenges and opportunities of studying highland ecosystems, mountain cultures, and the historical role of mountains as sites of disasters and as refugia in Europe, the Americas, Central Asia, and East Africa.
4. We welcome three new members of the LMU faculty to the RCC PhD Program Advisory Board: Claudia Binder, Chair for Human Geography with a focus on Human-Environment Relations; Karen Pittel, Chair of Economics in Environment, Energy, and Depletable Resources; and Gordon Winder, Professor of Economic Geography and Tourism Research.
5. The Environment & Society Portal has reached its 50,000th unique user and released a new version that dramatically expands the Multimedia Library, incorporates and indexes the complete RCC Perspectives, and offers even more attractive and user-friendly features.
6. The Global Environments Summer Academy (GESA 2013), organized by Carson alumnus Gary Martin with support from the RCC, took place in Bern, Switzerland in August and gathered two dozen emerging leaders from international environmental NGOs and civil society. Carson Fellow John Agbonifo and alumni Siddhartha Krishnan, Melinda Laituri, and Michel Pimbert participated in collaborative sessions on Agro-pastoral Landscapes, Spirituality and Environmental Movements, and Resources, Territory, and Power.
7. Publications and Calls for Papers
• Three new issues of RCC Perspectives have appeared since July and are available for download: 2013, Issue 3, "Anthropocene: Exploring the Future of the Age of Humans," edited by Helmuth Trischler; Issue 4, "The Culture and Politics of Energy in Germany: A Historical Perspective," by David Blackbourn; and Issue 5, "Making Tracks: Human and Environmental Histories," edited by Christof Mauch, Helmuth Trischler, Lawrence Culver, Shen Hou, and Katie Ritson.
• "From Exploitation to Sustainability? Global Perspectives on the History and Future of Resource Depletion,” a special issue of Nova Acta Leopoldina journal co-edited by Bernd Herrmann and Christof Mauch, features eight articles by Jane Carruthers, John R. McNeill, José Augusto Padua, Libby Robin, and others as well as summaries of recent doctoral projects in environmental history at Göttingen and LMU Munich.
8. Fellows, Alumni, and Staff News
• The RCC welcomes Anna Rühl as Acting Certificate Program Coordinator for the new Environmental Studies Certificate Program at LMU, an initiative of the RCC.
• Rebecca Hofmann and Uwe Lübken of the Climates of Migration team presented at the 10th Forum for Sustainability (FONA), organized by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), and attended by over 400 participants in Leipzig 9-11 September.
• Climates of Migration Project Director Uwe Lübken will teach North American and environmental history at the University of Münster in the fall 2013.
9. Upcoming Events:
• 3–5 October: “Extractive Industries and the Arctic” (Workshop at Memorial University of Newfoundland)
• 10 October: Erdenetuya Urtnast on “Environmental Knowledge and Conservation of the Mongols” (Lunchtime Colloquium)
• 10 October: “The Age of Stupid” (Green Visions Film Series)
• 17 October: Jenny Price on “History and Theory in Action! Tours, iPhone Apps, and Art Activism” (Lunchtime Colloquium)
• 24 October: Nicole Seymour on “Boys Gone Wild: Documenting 'Bad' Natures” (Lunchtime Colloquium)
• 25 October: Shari L. Wilson and Donald Worster on “Moving People, Produce, and Policy,” (Discussion at RCC, co-sponsored by US Consulate General Munich and Bayerisch-Amerikanishes Zentrum)
• 31 October: Jon Mathieu on “Long Story Short: 15,000 Years of Alpine History in 200 Pages” (Lunchtime Colloquium)
• 7–8 November: “Going Green: The Emergence and Entanglements of the Green Movement in Australia, the USA, and Germany, 1970 to Present Day” (Workshop at the Deutsches Museum)

Check out the fantastic series “Making Tracks” on our blog, which features essays by RCC fellows on the diverse paths that led them to pursue research in the environmental humanities. And stay in touch via our website, Facebook page, and Twitter feed.

Best wishes,
The Rachel Carson Center