EHCA Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Environmental History

On the occasion of the 3rd WCEH, Florianopolis, Brazil, The Environmental History Cluster Austria will hand out its first EHCA Prize:

The aim and scope of the prize is to acknowledge conceptual and empirical approaches to environmental history, which are interdisciplinary and contribute significantly to advancing the field as an interdisciplinary endeavour. While environmental history tends to use the data of a large range of disciplines as their sources, and hence often is multi-disciplinary, some approaches are made possible because of a very intense integration of concepts, approaches, methods and data from various disciplines. Such work needs an extra effort and is often bound to teams, a form or organisation of research that the historical profession has taken up less than other disciplines. For further information on how to apply check this document: EHCA Prize.

Devastating Fire Postpones Call for Papers Deadline until 1 October.

On September 2, 2018, a massive fire devastated the National Museum of Brazil. Founded 200 years ago, the museum is Brazil's oldest scientific institution and one of the largest and most renowned museums in Latin America, with a collection of 20 million artifacts and specimens. Newspapers around the world have published many articles about this tragic event, and the list of destroyed artifacts is now an almost familiar recitation of mourning: the butterfly and entomology collections, the archives, the Egyptian collection, the mounted dinosaurs, the recording of indigenous voices, the Anthropology Library. Luzia, the oldest human fossil found in the Brazilian territory, is lost. It is a loss not only for Brazilians, but for scientists and scholars around the world

For Brazilian environmental historians, the Museum is a particularly cherished space. It is connected to the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and generations of Brazilian scientists have graduated there. Many environmental historians have explored the archives of the National Museum, taken classes there, studied the paleontology collections, written theses, articles and books about the artifacts and those who collected the precious artifacts, and about what the Museum meant to national science and to the concept of nature in Brazil. 
As Brazil is preparing to host the 3rd World Congress of Environmental History in July 2019, in Florianópolis, this loss is deeply felt. In light of this devastating loss, we ask for help from the international community of environmental historians. If you have researched at the National Museum, if you have images of the collections, the artifacts, or any related documents, please send copies to museunacional.ufrj.br/memoria (it is an institutional link.) If your institution would like to support the National Museum of Brazil in a more concrete way, write to falecomdiretor@mn.ufrj.br
Due to these exceptional circumstances, the Organizing Committee of the 3rd World Congress of Environmental History agreed to extend the deadline for proposal submissions until October 1st.

We hope this extension will allow for everyone interested in taking part in proposals for the academic program of this exciting conference.

3rd World Congress of Environmental History, 22-26 July, 2019: Click here for Call for Papers

Volunteer For The ICEHO Charity Sale In Zagreb

ICEHO will be holding a charity sale at the upcoming ESEH conference in Zagreb. Proceeds will help scholars from developing nations attend the next World Congress of Environmental History (WCEH), in Brazil. The sale will continue over the course of the ESEH at our official ICEHO table. 

We are looking for volunteers to help us run our sale by sitting at the ICEHO table for short, 1.5-hour stints. If you want to have a little downtime  between sessions, this might be for you. And you'll be supporting a good cause! 

If you're interested, please contact the incoming ICEHO secretary, Bo Poulsen, at BPoulsen@cgs.aau.dk. 

ICEHO Charity Sale at ESEH Conference

From June 28th until July 1st, the European Society for Environmental History will hold its biannual conference in Zagreb, Croatia. We will be holding a charity sale at our ICEHO table. We ask all environmental historians attending the ESEH conference to bring small items, such as books, for our sale, to prepare to buy items at our table, and to consider volunteering as salespersons. Our president, Verena Winiwarter, will start things off by selling her handmade socks. All proceeds will support travel and accommodations for scholars from economically disadvantaged countries who wish to attend our next World Congress of Environmental History.

ICEHO Bulletin 12 Published

Libby Robin has compiled our latest bulletin, with reports from the ASEH, an update on the next WCEH, and much more. Download it here.

Invitation: Merge Your 2019 Conference with the next WCEH

To the representatives of ICEHO member organizations (or working groups, etc.) from the president’s desk.

Dear colleagues,

One result of our meeting in Chicago was to remind us of the necessity to co-ordinate the conference schedules of all our member organizations as far as possible so not to overtax the potential of our colleagues’ travel possibilities and monetary restrictions. The International Water History Organization has agreed to put forward to their executive board the suggestion to merge their 2019 conference with the WCEH (July 23-26, Florianapolis).

We would like to encourage other societies or working groups of such societies to consider following this example.  This will need consideration in the program, as we need to provide space for business meetings or other meetings the respective societies might need. Such program issues need to be addressed upfront, as they determine how many papers can be accepted for the conference and reverberates in threads to be constructed in the program and also to sponsorship of plenaries and more.

So at this point, I would invite your feedback on the following three questions:

(1)    Does your organization plan to hold a meeting/conference in 2019 independent of WCEH and if so, when is it scheduled? If there is a potential conflict, may we ask you to consider selecting a date for the conference that might be less competitive?  

(2)    Does your organization wish to merge their meeting with WCEH and if so, what conditions need to be met by WCEH to enable this? Note that all papers submitted to the conference will be selected by the program committee, but there might be issues of expertise on the committee, threads or necessity of meeting time for executive boards or General Assemblies.

(3)    Will your organization sponsor sessions or people to come to WCEH? If so, please inform us about your plans.

We are of course open to any other suggestions, reflections or comments you have. Thank you for getting back to us with answers to these questions  at your earliest convenience. If answers depend on you discussing this within your organization, let us know when you will be able to answer them. Please send all responses to me directly. 

Thank you for your time and consideration on this matter,

Verena Winiwarter

President, ICEHO

Invitation to this year's ICEHO General Assembly in Zagreb

This serves to notify all ICEHO members in good standing that a General Assembly will be held in Zagreb at the ESEH conference. Please diarise this meeting and also publicise it among ICEHO member organisations as we require a quorum of one-tenth of members.

Your organisation needs to be represented at this Assembly. The special business of this GA is formally to elect the ICEHO Treasurer and Secretary whose term of office is 4 years, not 3 as it is for other Board members who were elected in 2016.

Click here to learn more. 

ICEHO Bulletin 11 Published

Our intrepid bulletin editor, Libby Robin, has published the our eleventh ICEHO bulletin. You can download it here. 

New Publication: Environmental History in the Making

The 2014 World Congress of Environmental History now has a lasting scholarly legacy. This series draws on presentations at WCEH 2014, and serves as a link for ongoing scholarship on the historical interrelationships between humanity and the natural world, with special attention to the modern age. It brings together different areas of expertise in both the natural and the social sciences to help them find a common language and a common perspective. The links between human activities and flora, fauna, water, soil, are examples of the most debated topics in environmental history, and they are covered in this series alongside more establish areas of inquiry. The human impacts on ecosystems and landscapes over time, the preservation of cultural heritage, studies of historical trajectories in pattern and processes, as well as applied research on historical use and management of landscapes and ecosystems, are also taken into account. Other important topics relate to the history of environmental ideas and movements, policies, laws, regulations, conservation, the history of immaterial heritage, such as traditional knowledge related to the environment.

History in Times of Trouble

Our former president, Jane Carruthers, recently recorded this video for Columbian students taking a history course with our vice presient, Claudia Maria Leal Leon. Professor Carruthers addresses the failure, in October of the peace treaty between the government of Columbia and the FARC. 

ICEHO Bulletin 10 Published

You can now download the tenth issue of the ICEHO Bulletin. In its ten pages, you can learn about the results of our first-ever member survey, discover the research and ideas of our new board members, and catch up on the latest news from our member organizations. 

Call for Papers: Water History 2017

Grand Rapids, USA June 15-17, 2017 The Water History conference of the International Water History Association (IWHA) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, will once again provide a platform to exchange and develop insights about the history of our most precious resource. The conference is co-organized by the IWHA and Western Michigan University.

The program committee welcomes proposals for individual papers and proposals for complete sessions. Session proposals can include three or four papers and a commentator. We encourage the inclusion of chairs in session proposals as well. Proposals for multiple sessions under one theme are also possible. The conference does not predefine topics for abstracts and sessions. Subjects and topics can range from rivers to drops, from seas to mountain lakes, from technologies to cultures, from first settlers to 20th century builders, as long as the subjects are related to water (are “wet”) and historical (are “old”).

All proposal abstracts, both individual and for sessions, will be reviewed by the program committee and should be submitted by the main author of the abstract through the online submission system. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words. A link to the online abstract submission page will be made available this July. Submissions can be made until November 15, 2016. In addition, session proposals (consisting of session title, 100 word description, names and affiliations of presenters and titles of their papers, names and affiliations of commentator and chair), should be sent separately to Daniel Macfarlane, chair of the program committee, at daniel.macfarlane@wmich.edu.

Job Opportunity: Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities

The School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor appointment in environmental humanities, broadly interpreted to embrace disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. We are interested in exceptional scholars who take innovative, pioneering approaches to such areas of inquiry as history and the environment; the arts, culture and the environment; environmental ethics and philosophy; environmental theory; environmental justice in a global perspective; the Anthropocene; the nonhuman in the humanities; and varieties of environmental knowledge. The successful candidate’s primary appointment will be in one of the following departments: Anthropology, Earth and Environmental Science, English, German, History, History and Sociology of Science, or Philosophy. Secondary appointments in other departments can be arranged, as appropriate. This will be the first in a cluster of appointments in various aspects of the environmental humanities. The successful candidate should therefore have a strong interest in building such a program and in interacting with scholars from other disciplines whose research lies within the overarching theme of environmental humanities. The successful candidate will teach courses in her or his home department and will participate in the development of curriculum pertinent to the theme of the cluster.

Applications should be submitted on-line and include a curriculum vitae, a research statement that includes the candidate’s perspective on how she or he fits into one of the core departments, an uploaded publication (either a link to a journal publication or some other writing sample), and the contact information for three individuals who will be contacted by the University with instructions on how to submit a letter of recommendation. Review of applications will begin November 3, 2016, and will continue until the position is filled. The School of Arts and Sciences is strongly committed to Penn’s Action Plan for Faculty Diversity and Excellence and to creating a more diverse faculty (for more information see the university’s diversity plan). The University of Pennsylvania is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Minorities, women, individuals with disabilities, and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.

The University of Pennsylvania values diversity and seeks talented students, faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds. The University of Pennsylvania does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected class status in the administration of its admissions, financial aid, educational or athletic programs, or other University-administered programs or in its employment practices. Questions or complaints regarding this policy should be directed to the Executive Director of the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs, Sansom Place East, 3600 Chestnut Street, Suite 228, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6106; or (215) 898-6993 (Voice) or (215) 898-7803 (TDD).

EAEH 2017: Call for Panels, Papers, and Posters

The fourth conference of East Asian Environmental History (EAEH 2017) will be held from October 27-30, 2017 in Tianjin, China. It is being jointly organized by the Association for East Asian Environmental History, Chinese Society for Environment Sciences along with a number of other institutions and will be hosted by Nankai University.

Click here for the full announcement. Visit the conference website by clicking here. 

ICEHO Member Survey door prize

Congratulations to Gretel Evans of Melbourne, Australia, who is the winner of the ICEHO Member Survey door prize! She has won two books of her choosing from the Cambridge University Press Studies in Environment and History series.

And as a treat, the press is offering us a limited time 20% discount on all books in the series! Thanks, Cambridge University Press, for your support of ICEHO and the international environmental history community.

Thanks also to everyone who responded to the survey: you have helped us better understand your needs and what you would like us to be doing. We will be posting analysis of the survey in the near future.

Take The ICEHO Member Survey!

The International Consortium for Environmental History Organizations has launched a survey to explore how it might better serve the global community of environmental historians. Please take the 5-10 minutes required to complete it. Click here to participate. 

The name of one respondent will be randomly drawn, and that respondent will win 2 books of their choice from the Studies in Environment and History series of Cambridge University Press. Thank you to CUP for its generous donation of this prize, and thank you to Alan MacEachern for preparing this survey. 

ICEHO Bulletin 9 Published

You can now download the ninth issue of the ICEHO Bulletin. In this issue, our President, Verena Winiwarter, and our WCEH Site Selection chair, Graeme Wynn, gives the latest, exciting news about our next WCEH conference. We also introduce our brand new website, welcome incoming member organizations, shed light on digital environmental history around the world, and much more. 

ICEHO Bulletin 8 Published

You can now download the eighth issue of the ICEHO Bulletin. In this issue, you can read about our meeting in Seattle, our new leaders, and the activities of our member organizations. Our outgoing Presidents, Libby Robin and Jane Carruthers, describe the growth of ICEHO under their leadership, and give a vision of where we might go in the future. We also thank our outgoing secretary, Dolly Jørgensen, for her many contributions to our organization. 

General Assembly 2016

There will be an ICEHO General Assembly on Friday 1 April 2016, 6:30pm to 7:30pm, Grand 2 Room (Level 4), Westin Seattle Hotel, Seattle, WA, in conjunction with the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) annual meeting.

The assembly will include voting for President, Vice-President, and Ordinary Members of the ICEHO Board, which is done by ballot. We invite the member organizations to make additional nominations from the floor for any of these positions, and especially encourage nominations for Vice-President. According to the ICEHO Constitution, the procedure for such nominations is:

Additional nominations may be made from the floor of the General Assembly, provided that each person so nominated has the support in writing of his or her Member Association or Institutional Member, and at least three (3) other Members, and subject to confirmation that the nominee agrees to serve if elected. Such nominations shall be accompanied by biographical details.

Each member organization is entitled to one Voting Representative at the meeting. An organization can also vote by proxy by notifying the Secretary of the person who will be voting on the member’s behalf.