Two decades ago, Bill Cronon called on his readers to “Rethink the Human Place in Nature”—a quest environmental historians have embarked on in droves, in diverse, imaginative, and challenging ways. From the backyard pond to the sedimented river, from the flowering postindustrial landscape to the mountaintop, environmental thinkers have explored the numerous and often fraught relationships humans hold with their environments—consciously or unconsciously, locally or globally, individually and in groups.
In recent years, movements like the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, the Global Climate Strike, and Extinction Rebellion have drawn international attention to these often disparate and layered relationships with environments, culminating in a political moment at which nature is on the forefront. However, as scholars of the environment will tell you, nature has always been political.
EHN is seeking contributors for our forthcoming series, Politics of Nature. Pieces should be 750-1000 words in length, and can cover any topic within this theme, related to both research and personal experience, across any time or geographical space. The goal of this series is to showcase the diverse and complex experiences people have with environments, and to illustrate the ways in which thinking about, writing about, and acting for or within nature has affected them.
Contributors will be considered who fit within the website’s larger goal of elevating the voices of underrepresented scholars in environmental history.
Please write with ideas, proposals, or questions to emily@envhistnow.com