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.

Environment was strongly represented at the recently-held Past Tensions, New Zealand Historical Association Conference, hosted by the History Programme, University of Waikato from 16 to 18 November 2011. Six streams – and no fewer than 20 papers out of 98 – addressed environmentally-related themes. That represents over 20% of all papers! And, I think it’s a fair indication of the growing importance of studies on the environment.

Since the journal began some 6 years ago, environmental studies in the humanities has gone from strength to strength. Environmental history papers are being offered at the universities of Otago, Victoria, and Waikato, with garden history also being taught at the last institution. A website is available (http://envirohistorynz.wordpress.com/) which brings together writing on the environment. As I write, a new environmental history organisation is in the process of forming from the Australian Forest History Society. A new peer-reviewed Australasian journal of environmental history will also be published from ANU E-Press (more details will be forthcoming).

While these developments are impressive, there is still room for more to be done. The New Zealand Journal of History carries very few studies on environmental history. The University of Auckland, which of the institutions not to offer environmental history, has the most capacity to do so (being the second-largest history department after the Waitangi Tribunal), has great potential to carry on the mantle of Kenneth Cumberland.

Beyond the stuffy rooms of the ivory tower, issues about environment are increasingly to the fore in the public domain. The Rena disaster has focussed attention on government monitoring of ships and the preparedness of the government to meet such an environmental crisis. Mining – especially of the ocean floor – remains a hot political topic. We continue as a nation to dodge the issue of fossil fuel usage and sustainability.

The contributions to this issue bring together what I consider as the particular strenths of ENNZ: providing a forum for new research; a test-bed of ideas; a voice to those beginning their research; a review of the latest offerings in the field from different disciplinary perspectives; and not least, making accessible a variety of stimulating and (at times) controversial ideas.

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.

In handing on the editorship of ENNZ to Dr. Paul Star, I would like to thank all of those whose support made this journal possible and wish Paul all the best with the journal’s editing.

James Beattie, Hamilton, November 2011