ESEH is happy to announce that the Environmental History Today online seminar series is back! Introduced as a response to pandemic COVID-2019 and the lack of opportunity to discuss recent research at in-person conferences, these seminars transformed into permanent meetings of environmental historians from all over the world and those who are interested in the history of interaction between human and environment. In 2023-2025 Environmental History Today online seminar series aim to demonstrate recent achievements in environmental history in different regions. ESEH has representatives in 22 regions and each of them will have the opportunity to talk about recently published books or projects or studies which reflect the environmental history agenda.
Our online seminars take place once a month and bring together scholars, activists and students from different parts of the world. We provide a unique space for developing and exchanging ideas through a transnational network of scholars working on the history of the environment.
The convenors of the seminar series are Anna Olenenko, Nina Vieira and Kati Lindström.
Environmental History Today online seminars are open to everyone! To take part you need to register for each seminar separately.
November 22, 2023, Wednesday, 16:15 – 17:00 EET (14.15. GMT; 15.15. CET; 16.15 SAST and IST; 17.15 TRT; 01.15 Nov 23, 2023 AEDT) – Nordic region
Book presentation: Green Development or Greenwashing? Environmental Histories of Finland (The White Horse Press 2023)
Presenters: editors Viktor Pál, Tuomas Räsänen and Mikko Saikku
Special Guests of the session: Sarah Johnson, Partner, White Horse Press, UK; Professor Mark Hersey, Mississippi State University, USA
This event is held in hybrid form on Zoom and physically at University of Helsinki (Porthania, Yliopistonkatu 3, Room P219) at 16.15-17.00 EET on November 22, 2023.
Register to receive your Zoom link: https://kth-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5ctdeGurz4uHtOy2mpZNhqbWLWg7crPVONh
The book is downloadable at https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/77073
December 12, 2023, Tuesday, 11:00-12:30 EET (09:00 GMT; 10:00 CET; 11:00 SAST and IST; 12:00 TRT; 20:00 AEDT) – Baltic States
Presentation: Animal welfare movement in Estonia before World War II
Presenter: Karl Hein, Tallinn University
Discussants: Maarja Kaaristo, The Manchester Metropolitan University, and Otto Latva, University of Turku
Register to receive your Zoom link: https://kth-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5wvd-uvqjgtHd3JF4HUwImrLWRfefYsCyof
January 24, 2024 – Wednesday, 17:00-18:30 CET (18:00 EET, SAST and IST; 16:00 GMT, 19:00 TRT; Thursday, 25 January 2024, 03:00 AEDT) – Poland
Book presentation: Pripet Marshes. Nature, knowledge, and politics in Polish Polesie until 1945 (Cracow: Universitas 2022)
Presenter: Dr hab., Sławomir Łotysz, Institute of History of Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
Commentator: Prof. dr hab. Adam Izdebski, Faculty of History, Jagiellonian University, and Max Planck Institute, Jena
Moderator: Prof. UAM, dr hab. Małgorzata Praczyk, Faculty of History, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan (Poland)
Register to receive your Zoom link: https://kth-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Akc-utrDssHta7vOhK_Krqh6VMNrZNa39E
February 29, 2024, Thursday, 15:00-17:00 CET – Russia
Book presentation: The Green Power of Socialism: Wood, Forest, and the Making of Soviet Industrially Embedded Ecology (MIT Press 2024)
Presenter: Elena Kochetkova, University of Bergen, Norway
Discussant: Laurent Coumel, Europes-Eurasia Research Center (CREE), INALCO, Paris, France
Chair: Anastasia Fedotova
Zoom: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrd-qhqT8iH9C3UOKpkSmCuTbDWyD8ng0A
March 22, 2024, Friday, 11:00-13:00 CET/10:00-12:00 WET – Portugal
Roundtable: ENew Horizons for Portuguese Environmental History: An overview of REPORT(H)A and the new #envhist generation by 6 PhD candidates.
Presenters:
Sara Pinto (CITCEM/FLUP) – REPORT(H)A: reporting what is new in Portuguese Environmental History.
Ana Isabel Lopes (CITCEM-FLUP/ FCT Studentship 2020.04817.BD) – Coping with Drift Sands in Historical Societies: A Comparative Analysis of Northwest Portugal and European Communities Collective Action (16th-19th centuries)
Paulo Vasconcelos (CITCEM-FLUP/ FCT Studentship UI/BD/152807/2022) & Manuel Fernandes – Agents, motivations for dispersal and early impacts of eucalypti and acacias in Portugal
Rebeca Baptista (IEM, NOVA FCSH SFRH UI/BD/153095/2022) – Marine ivory in medieval Europe in the 10th-13th centuries. Hunting, circulation and utilisation of whale, walrus and narwhal raw materials.
Brígida Baptista (CHAM, NOVA FCSH UI/BD/1512/2021) – The socio-economic and environmental history of tuna fisheries in Algarve
Jaime Silva (4-OCEANS – CHAM, NOVA FCSH) – Into ancient watery worlds: a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to maya and mesopotamian aquatic symbols
Commentator: Nina Vieira
Zoom: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIrcOurrDojGdFnpMgjy4YQqWJE2d3OR5uQ
April 3, 2024, Wednesday, 17:00-18:30 CET – Israel
Roundtable: Environmental perspectives in the history of the Levant: between imperial rule and the development of Zionist and Palestinians national identities
Presenters:
Dr. Roy Marom, People and Forest in Ottoman Palestine: Ethnographic Sketch of Landscape Transformation in the Sharon Plain’s Ghaba
Prof. Anat Kidron, The Undrained Swamp: Colonialism, nationalism, environmental policy and swamps in Mandatory Palestine
Sleman Atehe, Unraveling Realities: Environmental Policy, Settler Colonialism, and Eco-Sumud in Naqab’s Unrecognized Villages
Chair: Dr. Omer Aloni
Zoom: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/98721527603?pwd=QVZadEVMY0NwMmNEYXhIWDVtT2U4QT09
May 28, 2024, Tuesday, 17:00-18:30 CET – Ukraine
Roundtable Discussion: Narrating Ukrainian rivers: new perspectives of environmental research of Ukraine
Presenters: Anna Olenenko, Oleksii Chebotariov, Irene Sywenky, Natalia Khanenko-Friesen
Zoom: https://unisg.zoom.us/meeting/register/u50scOyoqT4oH9BfgiabMs_vZ_Hnl3WdKqdr
Please, register before the event!
June 6, 2024, Thursday, 15:00-17:00 CET (16:00 EEST, IDT; 14:00 BST; 15:00 SAST; 23:00 AEST) – German Speaking Countries
Roundtable: Publishing Water Histories. A Round Table Discussion
Discussants: Ellen Arnold, Gertrud Haidvogl, Martin Schmid, Severin Hohensinner, Christina Spitzbart-Glasl
Chairs: Katharina Scharf and Robert Groß
Zoom: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIudOqurTMsGtD4g6Sy6AjnjnP0Q6PBHdhO
October 4, 2024, Friday, 12:30-14:00 CET – France
Roundtable: New (French) Voices on Pollution and Environmental Justice
In this session, four early-career researchers (doctoral students and recent graduates) based in France will share their research on pollution and/or environmental justice. Lucile Truffy, a doctoral student at Sciences-Po, will share her work on the history of plastics; Eugénie Clément, who is about to defend her thesis at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), will present her anthropological and historical research on the environmental struggles of the Navajo nation in the US. Dr Yaël Gagnepain, who defended his PhD at the university of Lille in 2023, will introduce his work on the pollution and flooding caused by the discharges of Roubaix’s textile industry in the 19th and 20th centuries. Finally, Dr Louis Fagon, a recent EHESS PhD, will tell us more about the nuclearization of the Rhône River from the 1970s to the 1990s.
The history of pollution and environmental justice are two themes that were pioneered in France by Professor Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud, author (among other publications) of Histoire de la pollution industrielle : France, 1789-1914 (2010) and Environmental and Social Justice in the City: historical perspectives (2011, with Richard Rodger) and former president of ESEH. By celebrating the research pursued in these two subfields by “new voices”, we want to acknowledge her important role in opening up new areas of studies for scholars in France and elsewhere.
This will also be the opportunity to present the book recently published in her honor: Le Chemin, La rive et L’usine: Faire de l’histoire environnementale avec Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud (Presses des Mines, 2023).
Discussants: Eugénie Clément (EHESS, Mondes Américains/CENA), Dr. Louis Fagon (EHESS/Université Paris Nanterre), Dr. Yaël Gagnepain (ENS, CERES), Lucile Truffy
Chair: Dr Elsa Devienne (Northumbria University – regional representative for France at ESEH)
Zoom: https://kth-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5UqdOyqqjMrGtA-7kgIgWVKXcL7rnQC9GkT
More to come…
October, 2024 – Croatia-Serbia-Slovenia
November, 2024 – Hungary
December, 2024 – Romania
January, 2025 – BNL
February, 2025 – Turkey
March, 2025 – Australasia
April, 2025 – Czech Republic
May, 2025 – UK and Ireland
June, 2025 – TBA
September, 2025 – Greece
October, 2025 – TBA