CHE Environmental History Colloquium, Complete Past Talks

2001-02

3/14, David Foster ( Harvard Forest ), "Linking ecology and history to interpret and conserve landscape pattern and process"

4/2, Bill Cronon facilitating, "Organizational Meeting: Creating a New Environmental History Colloquium at UW-Madison"

4/23: Art McEvoy, "The Indispensable Role of Law in Environmental Studies"

4/30: Gregg Mitman, "Never the Twain Shall Meet? The Natures of Environmental History and History of Science"

2002-03

9/17: Sara Hotchkiss, "Feedbacks between landscape and culture: 1000 years on a resource gradient"

10/1: Sara Hotchkiss, Bill Cronon: "The Challenge of Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Why It's Important, Why It's Hard, and How Best to Succeed at It"

10/15: Clark Miller and Paul Erickson, "Harmonizing and Globalizing Second Natures: "The UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and other global environmental assessments"

10/29: Jeremi Suri, "Ecological Diplomacy: How Perceptions of the Environment have Affected War and Peace"

11/12: Sophie Houdart (Laboratoire d'ethnologie et de sociologie comparative, Nanterre ), "Politicising nature : the making process of the Japanese International Exposition, Aichi 2005"

1/28: Jim Feldman, "Beyond the Wilderness Boundary: Designating Wilderness in Apostle Islands National Lakeshore"

2/11: General Brainstorming Session

2/23: Colloquium dinner and film night: Cane Toads

2/25: Lou Maher, "Geology by Light Plane"

3/11 Ken Raffa, "Gypsy Moth in Wisconsin - What does it tell us about ourselves and how we should address biological invasions?"

4/1 Bill Cronon facilitating, "Found Objects: How Do We See Them Differently?" (Bill Cronon will facilitate)

4/22 Cathie Bruner, "UW-Madison's Campus Natural Areas"

4/26: Cathie Bruner, Campus Natural Areas field trip

2003-04

9/23: Kendra Smith, "All Consuming Nature: Methodological Approaches to Environmental History and Consumer Culture"

10/7: Bill Cronon, "Can Scholars and Scientists Really Be Useful Beyond the Ivory Tower? The Pleasures and Perils of Environmental Service Outside the Academy"

10/21: Hong Jiang, "Using GIS to Analyze Past Environmental Change"

11/4: Janet Silbernagel , "The Landscape Canvas of Cultivation in Wisconsin 's Lake Superior Region"

11/18: Don Waller on "Fifty Years of Ecological Change in Wisconsin "

1/27: Michelle Steen-Adams, "Historic Land Surveys as a Resource for Environmental Historical Research"

2/10: Dawn Biehler and Mike Rawson , "Environmental History Goes Downtown: Finding a Place for the City in Environmental Scholarship"

2/25: John McNeill (Georgetown), "Synthesizing 20th-Century Global Environmental History"

3/4: Keith Benson (NSF), "Opportunities for Funding Research in Environmental History"

3/24: Jared Diamond (UCLA), "Lessons of Past Environmental Collapse"

4/14: Donald Worster (Kansas), "A Conversation with Donald Worster on Environmental History"

4/27: Nancy Langston, "Polluted Bodies: An Environmental History of Endocrine Disruptors"

2004-05

9/21: Tim Allen, "Enough Tokenism: Science Needs Rescuing by History"

10/5: Bill Cronon facilitating, General Introductions and Brainstorming Session

10/19: Richard White (Stanford), "Environmental History and Public Policy"

10/26: Dave Foreman (Rewilding Institute), "The Rewilding Institute's EcoWild Program"

11/16: Bill Cronon facilitating, "Reflecting on the 2004 Election: Its Implications and Consequences for the Environment"

2/8: David Bart, "Narrative Explanations Versus Story Telling: The Challenges of Demonstrating Causal Linkages Among Events in Explaining Environmental Change"

2/22: Rebecca Solnit, "Time in Yosemite: Ice Ages, Tree Clocks, Ghost Rivers "

3/8: Art McEvoy, "On Teaching Environmental Justice"

3/29: Jerry Jacka, "End Times: Papua New Guinean Narratives of Ecological Decline in a Development Era."

4/26: Daniel Einstein, "A cultural landscape history of the Campus Natural Areas / Lakeshore Nature Preserve: 12,000 years of picnics and campfires"

2005-06

9/27: Organizational: Nature, Culture, and History at UW-Madison

10/4: Sara Hotchkiss, "Using the General Land Survey for Reconstructing "Presettlement" Vegetation: Can We Test Its Insights?"

10/25: Arthur McEvoy, "Environmental Law and the Decline of New Deal Constitutionalism"

11/2 (Wednesday): David Nye (Odense University, Denmark), "Annihilating Surprise? Tourists and Images at Grand Canyon "

11/8: Gregg Mitman, "Cockroaches, Housing, and Race: A History of Asthma and Urban Ecology in America"

11/22: Bill Cronon will facilitate an open conversation on the question, "Why Is Interdisciplinary Work in Environmental History So Hard...and So Important?"

2/1: Jerry Greenberg, "The Intelligently Designed Evolution of Society’s Relationship to Wildfire: How science and information have been used to change the way we look at and manage wildfires"

2/15: Cancelled

3/22: Travis Tennessen, "Ranchers, Wilderness, and the Unfortunate Legacy of Conservation in the North Dakota Badlands"

4/5: Group Debriefing and Round Table Discussion of the American Society for Environmental History annual meeting in St. Paul

4/26: Cancelled

2006-07

9/19: Brian Donahue, "Meadows to Markets: Environmental History in Concord, Massachusetts”

10/10: Samer Alatout, "Bio-territorial power and water in context: Israeli occupation of the West Bank, military orders, and frameworks of security, 1967-1992"

10/24: Introductory Session: "Getting to Know Each Other: Folks Who Do Environmental History at UW-Madison"

11/7: Richard Keller, "City of Light, City of Heat: Social Ecology and the Making of the Paris Heat Wave"

11/21: Tom Brooking, University of Otago, New Zealand, "The Construction of the Grasslands in 'Newest England': New Zealand 1850s - 1920s"

1/31: Dawn Biehler, “Back-Alley Ecology: Rats, Public Health, and Urban Renewal in Baltimore, 1942-1955”

2/14: Andrew Case & Amrys Williams (with assistance from Todd Dresser & Kendra Smith-Howard), "Omnivorous Historians: Integrating Histories of Food, Agriculture, and Health"

3/7: Gregg Mitman, "Dreaming of CHE: Imagining and Building a Center for Culture, History, and Environment"

3/21: Gregg Mitman, A Tour of CHE's Future Home

4/11: Jerry Greenberg, "What Happens in Nevada, Stays in Nevada: How Public Lands Bills There Have Set Off a Firestorm Within the Wilderness Community"

4/25: General Discussion of the Center for Culture, History, and Environment's Proposed Certificate for Meeting Minor Requirements in the Graduate School

5/2: Conversation about Graduate Student Goals for new Center for Culture, History, and Environment (for grad students only)

2007-08

9/19: Gregg Mitman, Introductory Session to Launch CHE and the Colloquium for 2007-08

10/3: Amrys Williams, "Head, Heart, Hands, and Health: 4-H, Ecology, and Conservation in Wisconsin, 1930-1950"

10/9: Special Tuesday Colloquium with Adam Rome, Pennsylvania State University, "Inspirational Stories and Cautionary Tales: An Environmental Historian Reflects on the Challenge of Global Warming"

10/24: Judith Helfand and Sarita Siegel, "Where Content meets Intent: A Conversation about Environmental Film and Advocacy with Judith Helfand and Sarita Siegel"

10/25: Peggy Shepard, West Harlem Environmental Action, "A Conversation with about Environmental Justice"

11/7: Colloquium Conversation: Lessons Learned from "Tales from Planet Earth," CHE's First Environmental Film Festival

11/28: Buddy Huffaker & Jennifer Kobylecky, "Land, Health, Ethics: Interpreting Aldo Leopold’s Legacy in the 21st Century" (rescheduled to April 9)

1/30: Rachel Azima, "'Weeds are Us': Weeds, Cosmopolitanism, and Biodiversity"

2/13: Jim McCann, 206 Ingraham, "Taytu's Feast: Food and Cuisine in Building the Nation" (co-sponsored with African Studies)

2/27: Steve Forman, W. W. Norton & Co., "A Conversation about Book Publishing for Prospective Authors"

3/5: Megan Raby, "'Birdskins Are Capital': Western Expansion and the Geography of Nineteenth-Century American Ornithological Collection"

3/7: Special Friday Colloquium with Craig Colten, Louisiana State University, "What Historical Geography and Environmental History Can Contribute to Our Understanding of Ecological and Cultural Resilience" (cosponsored with Geography Department's Human Environment Research Discussion group), 350 Science Hall

3/26: David Mladenoff, "What can historical information contribute to ecology?"

4/9: Buddy Huffaker, Aldo Leopold Foundation, "Land, Health, Ethics: Interpreting Aldo Leopold’s Legacy in the 21st Century"

4/23: Carolyn Merchant, University of California, Berkeley, "Gender and Environmental History" (Memorial Union TITU)

2008-09

9/10: Gregg Mitman, Facilitator, "Launching the Year, Reintroducing Ourselves, and Brainstorming Topics and Activities for 2008-09"

9/15: Special Monday Colloquium Session with Harrit Ritvo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Animals as Environment"

9/24: Mrill Ingram, "The Worm, the Plant and the People -- Invasive Networks and Creative Restoration at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum"

10/8: Stephen Thomforde, "Bringing the Canvasback Back: An Environmental History of the Last American Wilderness Icon"

10/16: Special Thursday Colloquium with Ramachandra Guha, “The Career of Environmental History in South Asia: A Personal Account”

10/22: Gregg Mitman, Megan Raby, Sara Hotchkiss, and Lynn Nyhart, "People, Plants, and Culture: Bringing Humanistic Inquiry to a Botanical Database"

11/5: Don Waller, "Vanishing Presents: How Can We Alert the Public to Creeping Cumulative Ecological Change?"

11/19: Niko Pfund, Vice President and Publisher for Academic Books, Oxford University Press, New York, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Publishing But Were Afraid to Ask"

12/3: Rob Nixon, UW-Madison English Dept, "Slow Violence and Environmental Time"

1/28: Nancy Langston, "Modern Meat: Synthetic Hormones, Livestock, and Gender Anxieties in Post-War America"

2/11: Jennifer Schmitz, "How the Historical Clearcut Shaped Modern Conservation Policies in Northern Wisconsin"

2/18: Rob Emmett, "Southern Gardens in Black and White: Elizabeth Lawrence, Regionalism, and Race"

3/4: Paige West, Department of Anthropology, Barnard College, "The Fate of Crater Mountain: A Conservation-as-Development Tragedy"

3/25: Conevery Bolton Valencius, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, "Earthquakes and Emigrant Indians: Investigating the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-1812"

4/1, 12:00-1:30pm: Anne Whiston Spirn, The West Philadelphia Landscape Project: Reflections on Twenty Years of Engagement

4/15: Lawrence Buell, "Environmental Apocalyptics: Their Past and Future," 7191 Helen C. White

4/29: Anne Strainchamps, Wisconsin Public Radio, “Re-enchanting the Land: Putting Sense of Place on the Radio”

2009-10

9/9: Bill Cronon, Facilitator, "Launching the Year, Reintroducing Ourselves, and Brainstorming Topics and Activities for 2009-10"

9/25: A Conversation with Michael Pollan, University of California, Berkeley, Old Red Gym

10/7: Bill Cronon & Andrew Case, facilitators, "The New CHE Methods Course: Brainstorming its Goals, Design, and Syllabus"

10/21: Karen Crossley, Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission, "Environmental Art / Eco-Art in Dane County, Wisconsin"

11/4: Judith Helfand and Peter Boger, "A Conversation about the Tales from Planet Earth Film Festival".

11/17: Scott Russell Sanders, Indiana University, "Imagining Place"

12/2: Todd Goddard, "A Property in the Horizon: Land Speculation, Literature, and the (Eco)nomic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America"

1/27: Ken Raffa, "Anatomy of a Tipping Point: Bark Beetle Irruptions in the Northern Rockies"

2/10: Kristen Joiner, Sustain Dane, "Turning Thought into Action:  Sustainability and the World of the Non-Profit"  

2/24: Dan Brayton, Middlebury College, "Royal Fish: Marine Mammals in Shakespeare and Early Modern Natural History," 6191 H. C. White

3/3: Grad student presentations in preparation for American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) conference:
Mike Dockry:  My talk is part of Panel 1-A: Sovereignty, Culture, and Identity in Tribal Natural Resource Management  and the title for my talk is: "Menominee Environmental History and the College of Menominee Nation's Struggle to Define Sustainability".
Brian Leech: "A Landscape of Leisure or Labor: The Fight to Preserve the Columbia Gardens from Mining in Butte, Montana"

3/17: Grad Student Panel on Non-Academic Spin-Offs of Academic Work: Lessons from Research-Related Community Engagement
Kevin Gibbons, PhD student Nelson Institute/geography
Abby Neely, dissertator, geography
Heather Swan, PhD student, Literary Studies
Christine Vatovec, dissertator, Nelson Institute

4/7: Cancelled

4/21, 1:30-3:00pm: A Conversation with Margaret Atwood, Monona Terrace

5/5: Bill Cronon, Facilitator: A Potpourri of All Things CHE: End-of-Year Wrap-Up

2010-2011

9/15: Bill Cronon, facilitator: "Launching the Year, Reintroducing Ourselves, and Brainstorming CHE Topics and Activities for 2010-11"

9/29: Neil Maher, Rutgers and New Jersey Institute of Technology: "Ground Control: Unearthing An Environmental History of the Space Race"

10/13: Gregg Mitman and Bill Cronon, "Brainstorming the CHE Methods Seminar and Place-Based Workshop for Spring 2011"

10/20: Scott Peters, Cornell University, "Re-storying Land-Grant Colleges of Agriculture: Exemplars of Public Service, Technocratic Colonizers, or Catalysts for Democracy and Sustainability?"

10/27: Germán Palacio, "The Third Conquest of the Colombian Amazon by Global Forces: Neo-Conservationism Vs Neo Developmentalism"

11/10: Helen Tilley, History of Medicine, "'The Wisdom of the Peoples': African Networks and the Internationalization of 'Traditional Knowledge'"

12/1: Ian Baird, "Hydroelectric Dam Development in the Sesan River Basin in Vietnam and Cambodia: A Story about Unequal Power Relations and the Failure of the Mekong River Commission to Effectively Address Transboundary Environmental and Social Impacts"

1/26: Samer Alatout, "Water Multiples in Israeli Politics: A History of Neoliberalization as a Form of Government"

2/9: Erika Marín-Spiotta, "Reading Recent History from the Trees and the Soils: An Introduction"

2/23: Anne McClintock, "Oilscapes and Empire. The Militarization of the Gulf Environmental Catastrophe" (CANCELLED)

3/9: Naomi Oreskes, University of California, San Diego, "Truth, Trust, and Peer Review: The Case of the 1983 Acid Rain Peer Review Panel"

3/23: RESCHEDULED

4/6: Eve Emshwiller, "Human Influence on Crop Evolution: Domestication and Beyond"

4/20: CHE Members Meeting