Now that I’m pursuing a doctoral degree in the highly interdisciplinary field of environmental history, I have come to embrace new research methods.
Category: #envhistmatters
Liquid Geographies, Uneven Worlds: How Do We Talk About Placing Water?
As I sit in my home in Serampore, India, flanked by the river Hugli and waiting for the already delayed Monsoons to arrive and bring with it some relief, in what has been a record-breaking and extraordinarily hot summer in India, I recognize that writing about water in place-based research is a self-defeating endeavor.
The Bengal Tiger: A Survivor’s Story
The decimation of the Bengal Tiger, the national animal of both India and Bangladesh, already started in the colonial period through big game hunting, which depleted the numbers of tigers beyond recovery.
Touring Tough Oil: A Reflection on the Infrastructure of Offshore Energy
This year, I had a somewhat unusual birthday request. During a beach trip with my partner and friends down to Galveston, Texas, I asked that we visit the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig & Museum.
More Voices, New Sources: Using Historical Documents to Diversify a Survey Syllabus
Not having documents from the past left my syllabus for an environmental history survey feeling incomplete, both pedagogically and because the strangeness, difficulty, poignancy, and sheer diversity of human experience that historical documents convey was missing.
Am I the “Nature Faker?”: Defining Myself in an Academic World
As long as I gain some sort of enjoyment from learning about the environment’s impact on history, should that be enough to consider myself an environmental historian? I believe so. It will just have to include dogs.
Virginal Lands and Bodies: Colonial Domination of Nature and Purity
The historical, and continued, intertwining of white supremacy, colonization, and Christianity has created an interconnected web of oppression and domination.
Invisible Disaster?: Writing Air Pollution into the Disaster Pantheon
Originally inspired by my dissertation research on the historical development of Mexico City’s persistent air pollution problem, this reflection recentely took on a renewed sense of urgency.
The Perils of a Writer’s Profession: Overcoming Writer’s Block
If you are a person who will spend a great deal of your professional life writing, you too are likely to become afflicted by Writer’s Block at some point.
The Autistic Process: Research through the Overwhelming
Whatever its explanatory powers, or lack thereof, describing the autistic umwelt or life-world as intense carries an important truth about the advantages and disadvantages of working in academia with autism.