Rachel Carson Center (LMU RCC) - HD
15 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 12 years ago -The Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC) is an international, interdisciplinary center for research and education in environmental humanities located in Munich, Germany. It was founded in 2009 as a joint initiative of LMU Munich (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität) and the Deutsches Museum, and is generously supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The center is named after the American biologist, nature writer, and environmentalist Rachel Carson, whose accessible writing raised awareness worldwide about threats to the environment and human health. The Rachel Carson Center aims to advance research and discussion concerning the interaction between human agents and nature, and to strengthen the role of the humanities in current political and scientific debates about the environment. By bringing together scholars who work in various disciplines and national contexts, and communicating the results of their research, the RCC seeks to internationalize environmental humanities and to raise its profile as a globally significant and growing field.
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Episodes
An Integrated Environmental History of Watersheds
July 05, 2012 19:08 - 132 MB VideoHow have humans changed rivers throughout history, and what issues of social and environmental justice shape human interaction with rivers and, more generally, water? These questions shape the research of Carson Fellow Melinda Laituri, who is engaged in a comparative study between the Danube and the Colorado River. By using remotely sensed data, Laituri tracks changes in the development of the river; Laituri’s research also examines the human right to water. Melinda Laituri is currently based...
An Environmental History of the Danube
May 04, 2012 00:00 - 155 MB VideoCarson Fellow Martin Schmid discusses his work on writing the first environmental history of the Danube river; Schmid’s research is part of a larger project on the Danube at the Alpen-Adria-University in Vienna. The Danube has been substantially transformed since 1800 and is, according to Schmid, the most important river in Europe. In order to provide a better understanding of both the development and the importance of the Danube, Schmid begins his history in the 1500s. Martin Schmid is an as...
Manifest Disaster: Climate and the Making of America
November 19, 2011 00:00 - 209 MB VideoClimate had a key role in shaping the settlement and development of the West in the United States, according to Carson Fellow Lawrence Culver. By using historical sources, including government land surveys and travel accounts from settlers, Culver demonstrates the important role climate played for both survival and profit in the westward expansion process. Lawrence Culver is an associate professor in the Department of History at Utah State University, where his areas of research and teaching ...
Transforming Socialist Landscape
November 08, 2011 00:00 - 149 MB VideoThe transition from socialism to post-socialism has affected many aspects of life in Eastern Europe. By using anthropological participant-observer methodologies, Carson Fellow Stefan Dorondel looks at how this shift impacted land use in these regions; he considers both how people change in relation to the landscape and vice versa. Stefan Dorondel is an anthropologist interested in post-socialist land tenure systems and in land use change.
Neurohistory
May 10, 2011 00:00 - 167 MB VideoThe intersection between neuroscience and history frames Carson Fellow Edmund P. Russell’s research project. Russell looks as the role of functional magnetic resonance imagining (FMRI) in historical research, especially with regard to its effect on human understanding of different types of environments. Edmund P. Russell is an associate professor at the Department of Science, Technology, and Society and the Department of History at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on environme...
British Eighteenth-Century Laboring-Class Poets
May 09, 2011 00:00 - 138 MB VideoIn a unique approach to exploring transformations in land use, Carson Fellow Anne Milne uses poetry from the laboring class in eighteenth century Britain to understand different perceptions of nature during this era. These poets were often described as “natural geniuses.” Milne considers how nature figured in the representation of these poets as individuals; her work also aims to track changes in land use. Anne Milne is an ecocritic who specializes in restoration and eighteenth-century Britis...
An Environmental History of Hungary
May 05, 2011 00:00 VideoCarson Fellow Lajos Rácz explains the importance of climate history for the overall history of early modern Hungary. Documented climate data has only been in existence since the nineteenth century; therefore, Rácz reconstructs the pre-nineteenth century Hungarian climate from primary sources like diaries and letters. He uses such historical climate data in order to analyze how climate impacted the manner of everyday life during this era. Lajos Rácz is a professor at Szeged University and a vi...
Nature Conservation: The Influence of American Philosophies on Modern China
May 05, 2011 00:00 - 171 MB VideoHow have US American ideas about nature conservation influenced the conception of nature in China? Carson Fellow Hou Shen bases her research around the nature writings of three well-known American writers—Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson—in order to demonstrate how the idea of preserving nature for humans and for other species has been interpreted and transformed in Chinese culture. Hou Shen is currently an assistant professor at the history department of the Renmin Univer...
Fish, Gold, and Cotton: New World Resources in Western Europe
May 02, 2011 00:00 - 111 MB VideoExposing a phenomenon overlooked by many historians, Carson Fellow Donald Worster explains the importance of New World resources on Western European society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Worster details the role that gold, silver, fish, lumber, and cotton had on the imagination and thought processes of Europeans in this time period. Donald Worster is an American environmental historian and is the Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas, wher...
Facing Limits: Abundance, Scarcity, and the American Way of Life
May 02, 2011 00:00 - 139 MB VideoCarson Fellow and environmental historian Donald Worster argues that the discovery of the “New World” in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the most important event in modern history. These explorations gave Western society a wealth of natural resources that has never since been duplicated. Based around the controversy of the 1970s global bestseller, Limits to Growth, Worster examines the implications of the discovery of the New World and how society has transformed from one of natu...
Paradigmatic Shifts in Western Europe: The Importance of the New World
May 02, 2011 00:00 - 141 MB VideoCarson Fellow Donald Worster argues that the discovery of the New World dramatically shaped the very idea of freedom; it significantly altered perceptions of nature, economic growth, and concepts of individuality. Donald Worster is an American environmental historian and is the Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1989.
Adaptation of Local Knowledge Societies and Systems to Global Change
April 26, 2011 00:00 - 182 MB VideoCarson Fellow and Director of the Global Diversity Foundation Gary Martin examines the cultural implications of conservation designation (i.e. the system of preserving certain areas of land in national park, or related, structures from outside development). Martin explains how protected areas shape the livelihoods of those who live “next door”; he also considers the way that such structures impact both biological and cultural diversity. Gary Martin is an ethno-ecologist who focuses on the ine...
Hard Asphalt and Heavy Metals: An Environmental History of the Urban Crisis
November 09, 2010 00:00 - 212 MB VideoCarson Fellow Robert Gioelli highlights how central city residents in the United States dealt with increasing environmental problems in the 1960s and 1970s. He focuses on three case studies—St. Louis, Chicago, and Baltimore—in order to determine how urban renewal plans and highway development shaped the lives and environmental understanding of the residents, who were often minorities. Robert Gioelli is a historian of the modern United States with a specific interest in how the perception and ...
Environmental Mobility History in the Making
September 07, 2010 00:00 - 185 MB VideoCarson Fellow Gijs Mom describes his work on the automobile, which he sees as a vehicle for understanding how people in the early twentieth century both perceived and conquered nature. Mom relies on sources such as literature and films to determine how the car was driven and how driving changed the way that people experienced nature. Gijs Mom is a historian of technology, teaching and researching at Eindhoven University of Technology as Program Director for Mobility History.
Image Film
January 01, 2009 00:00 - 162 MB VideoVisit the RCC virtually! Shot in Munich, this film outlines the goals of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, highlights the research of the international Carson Fellows, profiles different types of events, and introduces the Center’s digital Environment & Society Portal.