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both pedagogically and because the strangeness, difficulty, poignancy, and sheer diversity of human experience that historical documents convey was missing.
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.
The historical, and continued, intertwining of white supremacy, colonization, and Christianity has created an interconnected web of oppression and domination.
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.
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.
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.
A few weeks ago, to acquaint students with primary sources and the process of reading archival materials “against the grain,” I brought to class a few sample sources from my own research. Sometimes just a few letters can offer revealing lenses into the past.
One of the fascinating things about site-specific performance in its broadest sense is that it helps us to think inclusively about bodies and the environments in which they are embedded.
Why is environmental history not more “mainstream”? What are your ideas for incorporating the environment and environmental history into survey courses?
