Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society Annual Report 2016 1 Table of Contents 1. The RCC at a Glance 2016 ............................................................................................................ 3 2. Organigram .................................................................................................................................. 5 3. The Academic Advisory Board ..................................................................................................... 6 4. Collaborations .............................................................................................................................. 7 5. Events ......................................................................................................................................... 10 6. Publications ................................................................................................................................ 17 7. Environment & Society Portal .................................................................................................... 19 8. Research Group Hazardous Travels ........................................................................................... 20 9. Doctoral Program Environment and Society ............................................................................. 21 10. Certificate Program in Environmental Studies .......................................................................... 22 11. Internship Program.................................................................................................................... 24 12. Fellows and Visiting Scholars ..................................................................................................... 25 13. Staff ........................................................................................................................................... 55 2 1. The RCC at a Glance 2016 Continuing with the theme for phase two—transformations in environment and society—the RCC hosted, sponsored, and participated in many conferences, workshops, seminars, and other events throughout 2016. A majority of the research conducted at the center has been more interdisciplinary in focus and method than in previous years, something that was reflected in the events and activities. 2016 saw the launch of the new DFG Emmy-Noether Research Project Hazardous Travels: Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy. The project investigates structures and dynamics of international hazardous waste trade since the 1970s. The team, consisting of three PhDs and one head of research, works with an asymmetrical comparison of “ghost acre” case studies from North America, Germany, Ecuador, and India. The RCC has recently submitted and sponsored a number of applications for Humboldt and LMU research fellowships as well as for research grants (Volkswagen Foundation). If successful, several of these grants would bring additional funds for research assistants, research staff, and conferences. The center’s networks in China continue to grow stronger. Thanks to funds from the LMU- China Academic Network (ChAN), the RCC was able to support several participants from China at a workshop in Freiburg in July and organize a graduate student conference in May with partners in Renmin. The doctoral program and certificate program are in the process of establishing an alumni organization to enable networking among graduates. Christof Mauch attended the Direktorentreffen (meeting of directors) of the Käte Hamburger Institutes in Erlangen in January, together with Arielle Helmick. The question of the sustainability (or institutionalization) of the individual institutes was addressed as part of this evaluation. The Geschäftsführerinnentreffen (annual meeting of the managing directors of the Käte Hamberger Institutes) was held in Munich on 4–5 February. Rob Emmet, the Director of Academic Programs, moved back to the US and his position will not be refilled. Instead, the RCC has created “Researcher-in-Residence” positions. These contracts will run for 6–9 months and are conceived as seed money for academics to write proposals for grants that will be hosted at the RCC. The application deadline for the first round was 30 November; the RCC hopes that the first researchers-in-residence will begin in February or March 2017. 3 The RCC has implemented a Code of Conduct, which all members of the RCC community are asked to sign. The code makes explicit some key aspects of the RCC community including communal responsibility for common areas of the building such as the kitchen and expectations regarding respectful behavior. A collaborative project between the RCC and Universidad Nacional del Litoral (UNL) in Santa Fe, Argentina, entitled Rights of Nature in Transatlantic Perspective received important funding from the Bavarian Academic Center for Latin America (BAYLAT), enabling the project to host a workshop at the RCC and a conference at UNL in 2016. RCC director Christof Mauch and fellow Valeria Berros coordinated the project with help from Anna Leah Tabios- Hillebrecht, a candidate of the Doctoral Program Environment and Society. Many current and former RCC staff, fellows, and scholars reunited at the ASEH annual conference in Seattle, reinforcing the strong networks maintained by the RCC. In total, more than 40 past and current fellows, as well as doctoral students and board members, presented their research or chaired sessions. 2016 marked the close of the RCC’s hugely successful collaborative special exhibition “The Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands” with the Deutsches Museum. After attracting significant numbers of visitors as well as media attention, the exhibition was extended for an additional 6 months, receiving 22,000 visitors in its final month. Among other prominent guests, the exhibition was visited by two German ministers during a Zukunftskongress (Future Congress) hosted by the Deutsches Museum. 4 2. Organigram 5 3. The Academic Advisory Board Three members of the Advisory Board finished their three-year periods of office in 2016: Prof. Dr. Eveline Dürr (LMU Munich, Germany) Prof. Dr. Dolly Jørgensen (Luleå University of Technology, Sweden / ESEH President) Prof. Dr. Hou Shen (Renmin University, Beijing, China) The members of the Advisors Board as of the end of 2016: Prof. Dr. Verena Winiwarter (Alpen-Adria-Universität, Klagenfurt, Austria), Chair Prof. Dr. Dorothee Brantz (Technical University of Berlin) Prof. Dr. Anke Friedrich (LMU Munich), Deputy Chair Prof. Dr. Simon Goldhill (Director of CRASSH, University of Cambridge, UK) Prof. Dr. Poul Holm (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) Prof. Dr. Bruno Latour (Sciences Po, Paris, France) Prof. Dr. Catherine Rigby (Bath Spa University, UK) Prof. Dr. Libby Robin (Australian National University, Canberra, Australia) 6 4. Collaborations The strong ties between Renmin University’s Center for Ecological History in Beijing, China, and the RCC were further reinforced in 2016. In May, the groups co-hosted an international graduate student workshop in environmental history, “Transformations of the Earth,” at Renmin University. The workshop focused on sharing new research on how societies, large or small, have transformed the natural world around them materially and in the process have changed their own structure, views of the world, or social-economic relations. Then in June, a special conference was held in honor of Don Worster (founder of Renmin’s Center for Ecological History) and his contributions to the field of environmental history. The conference, “Riches of Nature, Limits of Nature: Donald Worster and Environmental History,” was held in Renmin. The event was co-sponsored by the Center for Ecological History and School of History, Renmin University, the International Office and China Academic Network, LMU Munich, and Rachel Carson Center. A new cooperative project between the RCC and Universidad Nacional del Litoral in Santa Fe, Argentina (UNL), “Rights of Nature in Transatlantic Perspective,” won funding in the form of a startup grant (Anschubfinanzierung) from the Bavarian Academic Center for Latin America (BAYLAT). The project aims to promote transatlantic dialogue on the rights of nature. Two workshops on the theme were held in 2016, one at the RCC in July and a second at the UNL in September. An issue of RCC’s Perspectives based on the discussions from these events is being compiled for publication in 2017. Maintaining its close associations with LMU’s academic circles, the RCC teamed up with the University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (LMU), hosting the international workshop, “Environmental Context of Human Evolution and Dispersal,” which took place in October. The Rachel Carson Center is participating in a new European graduate training network, the Environmental Humanities for a Concerned Europe (ENHANCE) Innovative Training Network (ITN), known as ENHANCE/ITN. Its aim is to provide young researchers with multidisciplinary doctoral training in Environmental Humanities and prepare them for a wide variety of careers. In 2016, the environmental film “Land Beneath Our Feet,” directed by RCC fellow Gregg Mitman, saw its premier screening at the Leeds International Film Festival. The 7 screening was made possible by an ENHANCE/ITN grant. The program also co-hosted the Early-Career Researcher Conference “The Future of Wild Europe” at the University of Leeds in September, which resulted from the RCC ENHANCE/ITN project examining wildness as a key theme across many European societies.