Stories from Sweden’s far northern edge

Public lecture

Tuesday 29 May 2012

5.30-6.30pm, followed by a reception hosted by the Swedish Embassy hosted by the Ambassador for Sweden, His Excellency Sven-Olof Petersson.

Place: Coombs Extension Room 1.04, Australian National University

RSVP for catering purposes: cameron.muir@anu.edu.au

Today there is general agreement that global change is ongoing, rapid and that it affects us all. The scientific knowledge underpinning this change is surprisingly recent. In this talk I locate global environmental change in the wider context of planetary narratives, past and future. In particular I will focus on narratives about histories and futures connected with the far northern edges of the world, the Arctic and the North Atlantic: Indigenous populations, geostrategic security, the Cold War, expectations of ice-free sea routes, Arctic cities, and downright disaster. Sweden, an alliance free state without a coastline to the Arctic, has been an observer in geopolitical terms, but its geographical position and strong research capabilities have made it an important contributing party in these discussions.

Sverker Sörlin is professor of Environmental History in the Division of History of Science, Technology, and Environment at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. He is also affiliated with the Stockholm Resilience Centre. He is the author of several books of essays and nonfiction, including one on Darwin’s life as a father and family man (2009) and one on the philosophy of cross country skiing (2011). He frequently appears in the media as a critic and commentator, and has been a long standing member of the Swedish Government’s Science Advisory Board.

Sponsors:

Swedish Embassy, National Museum of Australia, Australian National University, Centre for Environmental History.

The European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) is pleased to invite proposals for sessions, roundtables, papers, posters and other, more experimental forms of communicating scholarship for its 2013 biennial conference in Munich, Germany. The conference will be hosted and organized by the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC) and held at LMU Munich (LMU: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) from 20-24 August 2013.

The conference is entitled ‘Circulating Natures: Water-Food-Energy.’ We wish, of course, to attract high-quality scholarship and to tap into intellectual energy-flows related to all aspects of the blooming field of environmental history. At the same time, we specifically encourage proposals related to ‘Circulating Natures’. While always situated locally, nature also circulates regionally and globally through the movement of natural resources, products, people and non-human biota. What happens in – and comes from – one part of the world can have profound effects on other, often distant places. We wish to explore this theme of circulation – which is of basic importance to the multifaceted relationships of humans with the rest of nature at different times and in diverse places – with specific reference to the three, often interrelated, subjects of ‘Water, Food, and Energy’.

For more information and the complete call for papers, please visit our website: www.eseh2013.org – Abstracts will be accepted between 15 May and 15 September 2012.

Natures, Cultures and Societies in the age of the Anthropocene

Date: Monday 18th & Tuesday 19th June, 2012

Venue: Sydney Law School Foyer, University of Sydney.

Further information:

http://sydney.edu.au/arts/research/environmental_humanities/conference/index.shtml

Grace Karskens

Tuesday 15 May 2012. 17:30 – 19:00pm

Coombs Lecture Theatre, Fellows Road ANU, followed by a reception in the Coombs extention.

Further information:

http://history.cass.anu.edu.au/event/allan-martin-2012-public-lecture-shifting-shape-austalian-history

Darrell Lewis

A Wild History: Life and Death on the Victoria River Frontier

Monash University Publishing – for details see: http://publishing.monash.edu.au/books/awh.html

To be launched by Professor Tom Griffiths, Director of the Centre for Environmental History, Australian National University

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22 March 2012

John Strehlow

The Tale of Frieda Keysser

Details of the book: www.strehlow.co.uk

To be launched by Dr Mike Smith, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Historical Research

National Museum of Australia

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Both events will be held in

The Hall,  National Museum of Australia

Lawson Crescent, Acton Peninsula, Canberra ACT

3.30 – 4.30 pm

Please RSVP Anne.Faris@nma.gov.au for catering

Register now for 2012 HRC-CHCI conference on ‘Anthropocene Humanities’ in June 2012, Canberra

Details:
http://hrc.anu.edu.au/anthropocene_humanities

http://hrc.anu.edu.au/CHCI2012registrationform

Wednesdays 4.15-5.30pm:

7 March
Brett Bennett, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, UWS
The Decline of Ecological Liberalism and the Rise of Invasive Species in the Southwest Cape, 1890-1975

21 March 
Tom Griffiths, School of History, ANU
Reflections on the centenary of the 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition.

Seminars are held in McDonald Room, Menzies Library, Fellows Road, ANU.

Tom Griffiths reflects on the tensions between science and sovereignty in Thus Began the Australian Occupation of Antarctica.

Tom’s Antarctic blog is also online with lots of great pictures.

In ‘Preserved for the People for All Time’, Cameron Muir asks if ‘balance’ is the best principle for inland rivers and recounts stories from the Macquarie Marshes in 1944 to the present Murray-Darling Basin.

Alessandro Antonello has reviewed the National Archives of Australia travelling exhibition ‘Traversing Antarctica’ in the latest issue of reCollections.

In this issue, Paul Star challenges historians to think about the role of private settlers in environmental change, putting forward the concept of ‘biota barons’ to describe those settlers whose actions resulted in significant ecological changes in nineteenth-century New Zealand. Joanna Bishop outlines a fascinating new topic – the role of medicinal plants in New Zealand – and asks readers for their help in tracking down new sources. Charles Dawson – presently in South America with his family – overviews an important new book on Māori attitudes to the natural world, that is also, as he puts it, ‘a handbook for aspiring kaitiaki’. Finally, Julian Kuzma reviews a delightful new book by Alex Calder which re-examines the relationship between Pākehā literature and the environment.

View it online or download a PDF.

This is the last edition of Environment and Nature in New Zealand under the editorship of James Beattie.

Centre for Environmental History, Australian National University, Canberra

28 May-1 June, 2012

Are you writing a PhD in some aspect of environmental history?

The Centre for Environmental History at the Australian National University will be running a workshop for PhD students from around the country who are researching aspects of environmental history in Australia, New Zealand or elsewhere. This is the sixth biennial workshop in environmental history run at ANU since 2002.

The aim of the workshop is to bring together doctoral students with common interests to learn from one another about how to address significant, exciting themes in this emerging field of scholarship. Students will be expected to participate by speaking and writing about their own research, and by doing some preparatory reading that will be provided in advance.

Sessions will be held on each of the five days (Monday 28 May to Friday 1 June). These will feature seminars on major themes in environmental history as well as student presentations on their doctoral research. Afternoons will mostly be reserved for preparatory reading, fieldwork, optional museum and archival visits, and informal meetings.

Course organisers will be Professor Tom Griffiths (Centre for Environmental History, ANU), Professor Libby Robin (Fenner School of Environment and Society ANU/Centre for Historical Research, National Museum of Australia), Dr Nicholas Brown (School of History, Research School of Social Sciences ANU/Centre for Historical Research National Museum of Australia), Dr Gregory Barton (Centre for Environmental History, ANU), and Professor Heather Goodall (Cosmopolitan Civil Societies, University of Technology, Sydney).

Our international guest of honour will be Professor Sverker Sörlin (Professor of Environmental History at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden).

How to apply

The workshop is designed primarily for doctoral students currently enrolled at universities in Australia and New Zealand who are undertaking studies in environmental history (in all its forms). The number of participants will be strictly limited (to facilitate discussion). There is no registration fee.

Please apply by providing the following:

• a brief curriculum vitae
• two short statements (together totalling no more than 500 words) explaining the subject of your doctoral research and what you hope to gain from such a workshop, and
• documented support for your attendance from your supervisor (a signature or e-mail will do!)

Send your application to Professor Libby Robin, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, or via email Libby.Robin@anu.edu.au by Monday, 27 February 2012.

Financial support will be available to participants from outside Canberra.  For those coming from interstate capital cities, this will include a reimbursement for a return discount economy airfare (or petrol expenses) plus a contribution of $150 to your accommodation expenses. An equivalent level of support will be offered to international participants.

We look forward to hearing from you!

This PhD Workshop is sponsored by the Centre for Environmental History, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU, the Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU, and the Centre for Historical Research, National Museum of Australia.