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RCC Newsletter, Issue 22

May 2015

20.05.2015

Dear Friends of the RCC,

The last eight fellows for Phase I of the RCC have arrived—we are so pleased to have such a talented and energetic group as we conclude our first funding phase. We are even more excited to begin Phase II of the RCC on 1 August 2015. Although this division is primarily an administrative and financial matter—the RCC will continue in much the same form that it has previously—we will be using the opportunity to reformulate our research focus of the next six years to “Transformations in Environment and Society.”

  1. We are pleased to announce that we have awarded the first set of fellowships for Phase II. A committee with members from several different disciplines read and evaluated hundreds of applications from all over the world to choose recipients for the 2015-16 cohort.

  2. The Turku Book Prize committee has announced its shortlist of 11 books. The winner will be announced at the European Society for Environmental History’s biennial conference, which will take place in Versailles, France, in July 2015.

  3. Alumna Fellow Cindy Ott has been chosen as the next president of the RCC’s Society of Fellows. Cindy has already formed an executive committee made up of former fellows Elin Kelsey, Siddharta Krishnan, Claudia Leal, Daisy Onyige, and Nicole Seymour. They are engaged in a variety of activities, including fundraising and the creation of an interactive world map of past and present RCC fellows.

  4. The Environment & Society Portal will be revisiting its scope and objectives during Phase II. Interested parties are invited to give feedback here.

    The Portal continues to develop as a resource: “Arcadia: Explorations in Environmental History” now features 69 articles and 4 collections; a new look will be unveiled before the ESEH conference in July. You can also now find volume 6 of Earth First! in the Portal’s multimedia collection. Finally, the affiliated blog of the Portal, “Ant Spider Bee: Exploring the Digital Environmental Humanities,” was relaunched on 1 April 2015 as a PressForward pilot partner.

  5. Two issues of RCC Perspectives have been published: “Beyond Doom and Gloom,” an exploration of how to find hopeful narratives about the future in the form of letters (ed. Elin Kelsey) and “Think Global, Eat Local,” featuring reflections on the movement to embrace local food systems (ed. Michel Pimbert, Rachel Shindelar, and Hanna Schösler). As always, the issues are free to download and read online.

    The most recent RCC special issue of the interdisciplinary journal Global Environment, published by White Horse Press, was released in April. Entitled “Small Islands and Natural Hazards,” the journal issue was edited by anthropologist and graduate of the doctoral program in Environment and Society Rebecca Hofmann and environmental historian and former RCC research fellow Uwe Lübken.

  6. New Graduate Exchange Opportunities: The RCC is excited to announce a new Erasmus+ exchange program, to take place between our environmental studies certificate program at LMU and the Institute of Social Ecology at the Vienna Campus of Alpen-Adria-Universität (AAU) in Klagenfurt, Austria. In addition, the RCC has an exchange program for doctoral students with the University of Kansas.

  7. Take a look back: The RCC’s 2014 annual report is now available online and features an overview of all our fellows, cooperations, publications, and outreach from 2014, including a special section on all the Anthropocene activities in 2014.

  8. Call for Papers: Consuming the World: Eating and Drinking in Culture, History, and Environment (Workshop) - Deadline 15 July 2015.

  9. Recent Events:

    Together with the University of South Carolina, the RCC co-sponsored a workshop on “The Climate of History” featuring renowned scholar Dipesh Chakrabarty.

    The working group on mobility history of the Gesellschaft für Technikgeschichte (German Society for the History of Technology) and the Rachel Carson Center hosted a joint conference in February, “Mobility and the Environment,” that looked at the environmentally relevant aspects of transport, traffic, and mobility from a historical perspective.

  10. Upcoming Events:

    21 May: Victor Seow on “Carbon Technocracy: East Asian Energy Regimes” (Lunchtime Colloquium)

    21 May: Film Screening + Discussion: Food Design (Green Visions Film Series)

    28–31 May: Manufacturing Landscapes—Nature and Technology in Environmental History (Conference)

    28 May: Erika Bsumek on "Damming Zion: Mormons, Indians, and the Fight for Resources in the Arid West" (Lunchtime Colloquium)

    28 May: Thomas Princen on Ending the Fossil Fuel Era (Book Launch)

    11 June: Rita Brara on “Adjudicating Resource Use: The National Green Tribunal, India” (Lunchtime Colloquium)

    18 June: Hal Crimmel on “Drink: The Nature of Beverages and Their Connection to Place” (Lunchtime Colloquium)

    25 June: Joana Gaspar de Freitas on “Against the Sand and the Sea: The Dunes in Coastal Defense Strategies” (Lunchtime Colloquium)

    25 June: Film Screening + Discussion: Seed Warriors (Green Visions Film Series)

    28–30 June: Toxic Legacies—Agent Orange as a Challenge (Conference)

  11. Alumni News: Eunice Blavascunas received an Assistant Professorship at Whitman College, Washington, USA. Fei Sheng received tenure at Sun Yat-Zen University. Ed Russell has been appointed the Vice President of the Research Division of the American Historical Society. Nicole Seymour’s monograph is a finalist for the ASLE book prize. The following fellows have had recent publications: Sigurd Bergmann, Angela Kreutz, John Meyer, Massimo Moraglio, and Hanna Schößler. Bron Taylor was recently interviews on planetary boundaries by RT.com. Alumni wishing to pass on news should send an email to website@rcc.lmu.de.

As always, to stay up to date on the RCC, check out our website, Facebook page, and blog, or follow us on Twitter.

Best wishes,

The Rachel Carson Center