The final BALTEHUMS program

First Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities
and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS)

October 8-9, 2018
Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences, Academic Center for Natural Sciences, Latvian University
Jelgavas Street 1, Riga, Latvia

 

October 8

10.00-12.00 > Session 1

1-1. Forum discussion: What is the contribution of environmental humanities to the sustainability and climate change debate

Convenor and moderator: Viktor Pál, University of Helsinki
Discussants: Dorothee Cambou, University of Helsinki; Parker C. Krieg, University of Helsinki; Julia Lajus, Higher School of Economics; St. Petersburg; Ulrike Plath, Tallinn University; Mikko Saikku, University of Helsinki; Inna Sukhenko, University of Helsinki.

1-2. Posthuman environments

Chair: Lauren Elizabeth LaFauci
Cecilia Åsberg, Christina Fredengren
Storying exposure: Chemical waste, toxic embodiment, and feminist environmental humanities in the Baltic Sea
Sarah Bezan
Skin/Screen: The Enfleshed Fossils of Julius Csotonyi’s Interactive Murals
Christina Fredengren
Checking in with Deep Time: intragenerational justice and care around the Baltic Sea
Igor Rodin
Tactility as subjectivization / material resistance as event 

1-3. From undernourishment to calamities: Problems in feeding population in the Baltic Sea rim in the 18th and 19th century

Panel convenor: Timo Myllyntaus
Chair: Priit Raudkivi
Timo Myllyntaus
Categories of nutrition shortages and population crises: Failures of food supply in 19th century Finland
Piotr Miodunka
Famines in 18th century Poland: Social or environmental causes?
Kersti Lust
Responding to crop failures in a manorial society: The case of post-emancipation Livland
Antti Häkkinen
The Great Famine of the 1860’s in Finland: A man-made disaster?
Aappo Kähönen
Political aspects of the Finnish famine 1867–1868 in comparative perspective

12.00-13.00 > Lunch

13.00-14.30 > Session 2

2-1. Mediated Green: modern environmentalism, politics and media

Chair: Tarmo Pikner
Jenni Karimäki
Children of the silent revolution – Finnish green road from protest to pragmatism
Lona Päll
The (hyper-)mediatization of an environmental conflict: Case study of Haabersti white willow
Līna Orste
Disposability of plastics through the perspective of Zero Waste lifestyle

2-2. Baltic region in the long-term

Chair: Christina Fredengren
Vladas Žulkus, Algirdas Girininkas, Linas Daugnora, Miglė Stančikaitė, Jolita Petkuvienė, Mindaugas Žilius, Tomas Rimkus, Nikita Dobrotin
People of Mesolithic-Neolithic and the Baltic Sea: relict coasts and settlements underwater and on the coast
Junzo Uchiyama
Neolithisation allergy? Comparative perspectives on hunter-gatherer archaeology of the Baltic and Northeast Asian regions
Elena Salmina, Sergey Salmin
Archaeological research as a method of obtaining historical and environmental information (on the example of medieval Pskov study)

2-3. Engineering water at the Baltic Sea

Chair: Loreta Zydeliene
Izabela Spielvogel, Jaroslaw Pilarek
Civilization of nature – architectural development of selected Baltic Spas at the turn of the 19th and 20th century
Alexey Kraykovskiy, Julia Lajus
The Baltic Sea in the environmental, technological and cultural history of St. Petersburg.
Michael Ziser
Water falls: Hydropower and the modern idea of history

14.30-15.00 > Coffee break

15.00-16.30 > Session 3 

3-1. Workshop. Engaging with digital research infrastructures: Opening doors for Geohumanities

Convenors: Vicky Garnett, Piraye Hacigüzeller, Eliza Papaki
Discussants: Vicky Garnett, Piraye Hacigüzeller, Eliza Papaki, Linda Kaljundi, Anda Baklane

3-2. Ecocriticism and the imagined worlds

Chair: Ene-Reet Soovik
Madeleine Ida Harke
Romanticizing the Untamed: Medievalism and the Relationship Between Humans and Wild Environments in the Child Ballads
Elle-Mari Talivee, Marianne Lind
Birds and plants in the poetry of Marie Under
Kadri Tüür
Ecocriticism in Estonia: a short introduction

3-3. Post-nuclear lives and narratives

Chair: Per Högselius
Siarhei Liubimau
‘Nuclear’ urbanism re-scaled: A knowledge infrastructure lens
Aleksandra Brylska
What can we call nature? The role of humanities in new approaches toward environment
Inna Sukhenko
What is new in new nuclear criticism? Post-Chernobyl perspective

16.30-17.00 > Coffee break

17.00-18.30 > Session 4

4-1. Ecological awareness in teaching and research

Chair: Kristine Abolina
Philipp P. Thapa
Ecotopianism as a connecting idea: embedding ethics in the environmental humanities
Alin Olteanu
An ecological theory of learning: The semiotic contribution to ecology
Artis Svece
Paradox of ecological awareness

4-2. Plants and People

Chair: Ulrike Plath
Riin Magnus, Heldur Sander
Urban trees as social disruptors: the case of the Ginkgo biloba specimen in Estonia
Lauren Elizabeth LaFauci
Herbaria 3.0: A Citizen Humanities Project at the Plant-Human Interface
Liisa Puusepp
Urban landscapes – an oasis for bees

4-3. Transnational and global formation of landscapes (until 19.00)

Chair: Dan Tamir
Simo Laakkonen
Landscapes of war: Global environmental impacts of the Second World War
Per Högselius, Kati Lindström
Cold War coasts: The transnational co-production of militarized landscapes
Martin Schröder
“Sowing the oil” – Rural space, (human) resources and national wealth in Venezuela
Kristīne Krumberga
Birds in trenches: the greening of militarization and militarizing habitats for landscape conservation

 

October 9

9.30-11.00 > Session 5

5-1. Roundtable. From drops to a sea:  Individuals, communities, protection policies and environmental crises.

Convenor and moderator: Kati Lindström
Discussants: Aet Annist, Elgars Felcis, Sara Jones, Katie Ritson

5-2. Advancing Baltic climate history: Creating a new module in Euro-Climhist

Panel convenor: Ulrike Plath
Panel chair: Julia Lajus
Ulrike Plath, Heli Huhtamaa
Euro-Climhist and how to create a Baltic Module
Priit Raudkivi
Was the weather important? The perception of the environment of the 18th century in Livonia.
Kaarel Vanamölder, Krister Kruusmaa
Storms around Riga in the mid of the 19th century

5-3. Represented environments

Chair: Linda Kaljundi
Tõnno Jonuks, Atko Remmel
Forest in Estonian national narrative and identity politics
Ene-Reet Soovik
Multispecies city in Soviet Estonian poetry
Janis Matvejs
Visual representation of cities: Riga and Bangkok in movies under the military regime

5-4. Shaping and enlightening the landscapes before 20th century

Chair: Riin Magnus
Pauls Daija
Popular enlightenment and environmental history in Livonia and Courland
Heldur Sander
Nothing happens on its own: Gardener Adam August Heinrich Dietrich – an environment designer and nature explorer
Vykintas Vaitkevicius
Studies into the past and modern culture of Lithuania: the case of sacred springs

11.00-11.30 > Coffee break

E-1. Posters and provocations

Posters:

Anatole Danto
For an eco-anthropological approach to changes affecting fishing communities in the eastern Baltic
Baiba Prūse, Andra Simanova, Raivo Kalle, Ieva Mežaka, Agris Brauns, Dainis Jakovels, Jevgenijs Filipovs, Inga Holsta, Signe Krūzkopa, Renata Sõukand
Habitat alteration as one of the drivers of the change in wild plant uses

Provocations:

Jesse Peterson
Short provocation with an exhibition: eutrophication, algae blooms, and dead zones in the Baltic Sea
Jason Mario Dydynski
Stand up. Too ugly for the ark: The Role of Aesthetic Perception in Animal Conservation

E-2. Flash and Academic Speed Dating

Chair: Ulrike Plath

Flash presentations:
Hannes Palang
Péter Vigh

Academic Speed Dating: Find a person and talk to them! Each pair gets five minutes to quickly introduce themselves. Then all pairs are reshuffled. With some luck, you will get to know 10 new scholars who work on or in the environmental humanities and social sciences of the Baltic region. You can continue your conversations during the lunch break!

12.30-13.30 > Lunch

13.30-15.30 > Session 6

6-1. Roundtable. The Value of Interdisciplinary in Environmental Research

Convenor: Aistė Balžekienė
Discussants: Aistė Balžekienė, Alin Olteanu, Florian Rabitz, Audrone Telesiene, Mihkel Kangur

6-2. Animal encounters

Chair: Junzo Uchiyama
Dan Tamir
Human vs. Mosquito: An environmental periodization of the 20th century
Anita Zariņa, Dārta Treija & Ivo Vinogradovs
Beastly encounters: bison’s return to the Latvian ethnoscape
Daiva Vaitkevičienė
Sacred Relationship: Interaction between Humans and Wild Animals in a Traditional Lithuanian Farmstead

6-3. Transforming, identifying of and identifying with landscapes

Chair: Guntra Aistara
Sławomir Łotysz
Progress or nature? Dilemmas around the planned amelioration of Polesie marshes in Poland’s Second Republic
Kristine Abolina
Alienation
Anu Printsmann
Prichudye – how identity is expressed in landscape
Dace Bula
Living Next to the Port: Eco-narratives, Local Histories and Environmental Activism in the Daugava Delta 

6-4. Roundtable. Potato and the Environment: Agrarian societies searching for survival strategies. 

Organiser: Timo Myllyntaus
Chair: Timo Myllyntaus
Discussants: Piotr Miodunka, Pauls Daija, Antti Häkkinen, Jan Kunnas, Timo Myllyntaus

15.30-16.00 > Coffee break

16.00-18.00 > Session 7

7-1. Ethics of care and commemoration

Chair: Philipp Thapa
Aiste Bartkiene, Renata Bikauskaitė, Diana Mincytė
Environment, emotions and embodied care: Twisting the concept of environmental citizenship
Andrius Kulikauskas
Environment as spiritual capital. An argument for restoring Vilnius’s oldest Jewish cemetery.
Allan Kährik
Pastor as a social entrepreneur – entering the bridge building process between pastors behavioral and geographical environment
Aleksandra Ubertowska
Ecological art in post-genocidal spaces. Seeking a new form of commemoration

7-2. Entanglements, sustainability and degrowth

Chair: Anita Zariņa
Tarmo Pikner
Encountering of degrowth and associated publics
Elgars Felcis
Bridging traditional knowledge and novelties for sustainability transformations through permaculture
Guntra Aistara
Networking diversities: Making mosaic landscapes and organic sovereignties in post- socialist Latvia
lorian Rabitz, Alin Olteanu
The epistemology of environmental studies. The reflexive turn in environmental research

7-3.  Historical perspectives on sustainability and environmentalism

Chair: Ivo Vinogradovs
Loreta Zydeliene
‘Useful, harmful and neutral’: the perception of wildlife and the rise of the conservation movement in interwar Lithuania
Linda Kaljundi
Environmentalist in form, nationalist in content? Nature and nationalism in late Soviet Estonian culture
Kati Lindström
Econationalism, environmental justice or orientalism: Challenges in contextualising late Soviet environmentalism in Estonia

 

Organisers

Dr. Kati Lindström, ESEH Regional Representative for the Baltic States, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Dr. Anita Zariņa & Dr. Kristīne Abolina, University of Latvia

Dr. Kadri Tüür, Prof. Ulrike Plath & Linda Kaljundi, Tallinn University

Dr. Anda Baklāne, Latvian Library

 

We are thankful for support from:

University of Latvia
Estonian Centre for Environmental History (KAJAK), Tallinn University
European Society for Environmental History (ESEH)
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
National Library of Latvia
Rachel Carson Centre (RCC)
Under and Tuglas Literature Centre of the Estonian Academy of Sciences

 

Downloadable program:  BALTEHUMS Program FINAL