Estonian Center for Environmental History (KAJAK), Tallinn University, Estonia
The RCC has had close ties to the Estonian Center for Environmental History (Keskkonnaajaloo Keskus, KAJAK) since 2012. Staff and fellows travel to Tallinn frequently to participate in conferences, workshops, and summer schools. In April 2014, the RCC sponsored several panels on ecomedia and environmental humanities with KAJAK and NIES (the Nordic Network for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies) as part of a biennial meeting of the European Society of Literature, Culture, and Environment in Tartu, Estonia. In spring 2023, the cooperation led to a first international Blended Intensive Program (BIP), which might be continued in the future. Some of the conferences RCC members attended in the past include BALTEHUMS conferences (2018 in Riga, 2021 in Tallinn) and the 2019 ESEH conference in Tallinn. As of 2024, the Estonian Center for Environmental History will have a new focus on environmental anthropology, which will be particularly interesting to Erasmus students.
Incoming Scholars:
- Ulrike Plath (2014, 2019–20)
Outgoing Scholars:
- Cindy Ott
- Frank Zelko
- Louis Warren
- Wilko von Hardenberg
Events:
- 21 April–9 June 2023: “BIP Environmental Craft Humanities: Histories, Technologies, and Cultures of Brewing” (BIP)
- 23–27 January 2017: “New Natures, Entangled Cultures: Perspectives in Environmental Humanities” (Winter School)
- 13–15 May 2015: “Animals in Transdisciplinary Environmental History” (Summer School)
- 10–12 September 2014: “Bellies, Bodies, ‘Policey’: Embodies Environments between Catastrophes and Control” (EASCLE Conference in Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia)
- 29 April–03 May 2014: “Framing Nature’: Signs, Stories, and Ecologies of Meaning” (Conference)
- 31 October 2012: “Environmental History in Estonia: The First Year of KAJAK” (Workshop)
Courses Taught at Tallinn with Ulrike Plath:
- 2020: “History of Technology and the Environment,” with Jonatan Palmblad and Fausto Ignatov Vinueza
- 2021: “Historical Environmental Humanities,” with Sevgi Mutlu Sirakova and Mai Abbas