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Nicole (Nicky) Rehnberg is a PhD candidate in history with an emphasis on environmental public history at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Her research focuses on the transnational intersections of conservation and eugenics and the ways in which natural history museums, botanical gardens, and regional parks have promulgated white supremacy. At the Rachel Carson Center, she will work on her dissertation “White Roots, Redwoods: Racializing Conservation in Germany and the US, 1920–1945” which examines how coast redwoods and giant sequoias became transnational objects of racial science and a tool of white supremacy in the early twentieth century. The project investigates how conservationists conflated forest and racial management through forestry displays in natural history museums and public parks in Germany and the US. As a member of the History and Relevancy Program through the University of California and California State Parks, she researches, writes, and creates programs on Californian environmental history for the public.
RCC Research Project: White Roots, Redwoods: Racializing Conservation in Germany and the US, 1920–1945
Selected Publications:
- “Energy Justice on California’s Central Coast: A Public Syllabus.” Accessed 1 April 2023. https://www.ejcasyllabus.org.
- with Alexander Lee, Alexandra M. Laird, Lee Bran, Cheyenne Coxon, Alexander J. Hamilton, Lydia A. Lawhorn, Jennifer A. Martin, Brian P. Tyrell, Zoe Welch, Benjamin Hale, and Peter S. Alagona. “The Ethics of Reintroducing Large Carnivores: The Case of the California Grizzly.” Conservation & Society 19, no.1 (2021): 80–90. https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_20_131.
- “Three Snapshots of Girlhood.” DASH Literary Journal, no. 11 (2018): 79.
- “Persephone Complex.” Ant vs. Whale 1, no 1 (Summer 2014): 39.
- “In Search of Lost Things: Proust and the Importance of Material Culture.” The American Papers, no. 33 (2014): 74–77.
- “Oh Captain, Our Captain: Captain America as a Hitler-Punching, Commie-Smashing, American God.” The American Papers, no. 32 (2013): 85–91.