Our contributors are helping you make sense of the news and recent publications related to the environmental humanities. We’ve published reviews on new books related art history and environmental law, as well as two posts helping you make sense of cats and conservation in New Zealand and offshore infrastructure in the US and Shanghai.

😽 Emily Major shared a crosspost, “Not Just Possums: Feral Cats, “Stone-Cold Killers and Conservation,” from her research activism blog Framing Speciesism. This post explores the different identities assigned by humans to cats in New Zealand, exploring the tension between feral and domesticate, conservation and cruelty. Be advised that this piece contains graphic descriptions. You can read it here.

Eliza Eckman’s piece, “The Return to Offshore: From Nuclear Power to Data Centers,” examines the long history of offshore infrastructure developments. She examines the relationship between a recent data center constructed off the coast of Shanghai and the twentieth-century nuclear and manufacturing plants on the east coast of the US. Amidst the **waves hands wildly** discourse surrounding increasing data usage and AI, reflecting on the long arc of electricity needs and how they influenced the rise and fall of some offshore infrastructures gave me a new perspective on one of the hottest topics today. You can read Eliza’s piece here.

🗞️Both of these posts are part of our ongoing series, MAKING SENSE OF, which connects environmental humanities and history to current events across the globe.🗞️

📖 We also published two recent book reviews. Angela Ocampo reviewed Alejandro E. Camacho and Brigham Daniels’ Lessons for a Warming Planet: A Vital History of US Environmental Law (NYU Press, 2026). Barbara Martinović reviewed Methods for Ecocritical Art History (Manchester University Press, 2026), edited by Olga Smith and Andrew Patrizio. You can read all of our book reviews here (and if you edit a book series or work at a press, and have a title to suggest to us, let us know!).

🎂Our editorial teams are working hard on preparing for EHN’s annual Anniversary Week, from September 14-18. This September marks eight years of EHN, and we’re celebrating with a week of specially curated posts, including a retrospective on where we’ve been and a reflection on where we’re headed next. We can’t wait to share this anniversary with you!

🥰 Want to hear more about anniversary week? Stay tuned on Substack, Instagram, and Bsky for regular updates 🥰

☀️ For many of us, the waning of summer is slowly giving way to the energy of a new academic term. If you’re constructing syllabi or connecting environmental pasts and presents in your courses, consider looking into our archives for book reviews on recent publications; series on politics, praxis, and action; and new perspectives on current events to support you in your teaching and research. You can also browse the full EHN archives. We’ll be back with more in just a few short weeks.

We love doing this work, and we’re grateful to you for supporting it! Keep in touch.

Until next time,

Emma and the EHN team 💐

Keep us sustainable

Transnational and heat-wave themed reading for you at EHN this month: helping you make sense of the changing energy landscape in the Arctic, and examining wildfires in Los Angeles and Northern Mexico. Plus, if you’re looking to take action, a how-to on publishing an edited collection.

🧊 Katrine Ehnhuus shared the latest installment of our ongoing series, “Making Sense Of…” to bring greater meaning to the Arctic’s energy dilemma. The EU is revising its Arctic strategy, which means dealing with competing geopolitical and environmental action pressures, writes Katrine. Yet she and her colleagues at ActionAid Denmark’s Nordic Center for Sustainable Finance remind us that “If energy security becomes synonymous with expanding fossil fuel infrastructure, Europe risks reproducing the very dependencies and insecurities it seeks to escape. That is why this debate cannot be left to fossil fuel interests alone.” This piece was such a clear and cogent exploration of EU environmental geopolitics, and I recommend checking it out and staying tuned for updates on this important news story. You can read it here.

🔥 Alyssa Spence’s piece, “Wildfires Across Borders: Comparing Impacts in Los Angeles and Northern Mexico,” examines the geopolitics of the climate crisis from another relevant angle: wildfires. Alyssa examines the 2024/2025 wildfire seasons in LA and Northern Mexico, which had similarly devastating ecological consequences but exemplified disparities in relief efforts, media coverage, and the wealth of those affected. Reading this underscored the transnational nature of wildfires for me, and brought home — again — that the meaning of national borders changes dramatically with an ecological perspective. I’d also highly recommend this one as a quick addition to an undergrad syllabus! You can read Alyssa’s essay here.

📚 Raechel Lutz has written a guide, “How to Publish an Edited Collection,” which is part of our Tools for Change series. Raechel outlines her own experience editing the recent and excellent New Jersey’s Natures: Environmental Histories of the Garden State and co-editing American Energy Cinema. She includes the four steps of publishing an edited collection and some general tips, which are not only helpful for those of us working on edited collections, but also demystify some elements of the publishing process. I’ll be bookmarking and returning to this one — you might want to as well! You can read Rachel’s piece here.

🌬️We received a record number of submissions from May’s Call for Abstracts — and our Google Doc reviewing them was full of enthusiastic comments from the executive team! Watch this space for exciting pieces by FLINTA* grad students and ECRs coming soon to an internet near you.

🥰 Missed our CfA this time around? Stay tuned on Substack, Instagram, and Bsky for the next one 🥰

🎆 We’re so excited to welcome new team members who volunteer their time and expertise to keep EHN running and thriving.

Enaiê Azambuja, Marie Comuzzo, Ailish Lalor, Alex Jacobs, and Valeria Zambianchi have joined our content editing team.

Tuba Arooj, Amanda Coate, Simone Holmes, and Matthew Wilson have joined our review editing team.

Thank you, new team members, for your work and enthusiasm! We’re so excited for you to join us.

🏳️‍🌈 As Pride Month comes to a close, we want to take a moment to wish you all a very happy Pride! As a FLINTA*-led team, we’re committed to sharing the work of women, trans, and nonbinary folks in the environmental humanities all year round, but we love June a little extra 🌸 We hope your Pride was joyful and sparkly ✨

☀️ For July, our newly expanded editorial teams will be working with authors to bring you new essays. Things might be a little quiet around here while we revise, research, and rest, but we’ll see you at the end of the month for an update. Don’t forget to rest this month, and look out for each other! If you’re feeling isolated in your AC, or too toasty on the train, or if you just want something good to read, check out “Making Sense of the Arctic’s Energy Dilemma,” “Wildfires Across Borders: Comparing Impacts in Los Angeles and Northern Mexico,” “How to Publish an Edited Collection,” and the EHN archives.

We love doing this work, and we’re grateful to you for supporting it! Keep in touch.

Until next time,

Emma and the EHN team 💐

Keep us sustainable

This month’s pieces dealt with questions of extinction and ecosystem transformation in two very different contexts: ferrets in Arizona and pear trees in Boston.

🦨 Olivia Davis and Risa Aria Schnebly’s essay, “Of Ferrets and Phantoms,” is an experiment in reckoning with and making meaning from extinction, beautifully narrated from dual perspectives. It was written for a special conference on “Making Amidst Extinction,” the results of which are in the works to be published in an upcoming special issue in the journal Cultural Geographies. Definitely give this piece a read — sneaky, tiny animals and meditations on extinction? Count me in (also, we definitely need a ferret emoji….) You can read it here.

🍐 Torrey Chin’s piece this month, “A Pear Tree Grew in Dorchester,” is part of our ongoing series Politics of Nature. Torrey reflects on growing up in Boston and the intertwined legacies of environmental transformation and aging reflected in her childhood pear tree. This one tugged at my heartstrings; it made me want to find my nearest fruit tree and call my beloved parents. The personal is political…and so are pears. You can read Torrey’s essay here.

🌬️May was a busy month for the executive and editorial teams. In addition to our regular publication schedule, we also made our semi-annual Call for Abstracts, for pieces to be published between August and December of this year. This is one of the most exciting moments of the editorial year for us, as we hear from FLINTA* grad students and ECRs about their in-progress work.

🥰 Missed our CfA this time around? Stay tuned on Substack, Instagram, and Bsky for the next one 🥰

🎆 EHN is fueled by our contributors and a volunteer team who work behind the scenes editing, creating graphics, checking links and footnotes, and sending so many emails. We’re also in the midst of interviewing new candidates for our editorial and content teams — so watch this space for announcements about new folks who will be joining us soon!

🌸 Team members based in Munich got together in person for one of the Tuesday Discussions, part of programming by the Rachel Carson Center. Adrienne, Katie, and Teja Adrienne talked about their work for EHN, the publishing process, and exciting new prospects, such as our brand-new series Making Sense of ….

☀️ Looking forward into June, we’ll be wrapping up interviews and reviewing abstracts to ensure that EHN can continue to bring you a wide range of perspectives on all things environmental history and environmental humanities. And, our volunteer team will also be conducting research, defending dissertations, traveling, resting, and writing (as you might be as well). If you’re looking for something to read planeside or beachside, check out “Of Ferrets and Phantoms,” “A Pear Tree Grew in Dorchester,” and the EHN archives.

We love doing this work, and we’re grateful to you for supporting it! Keep in touch.

Until next time,

Emma and the EHN team 💐

Keep us sustainable

EHN is a public-facing platform that prioritizes the voices of graduate students and early career scholars who identify as women, trans, and/or nonbinary people (FLINTA*).

Between August and December, EHN would like to prepare at least ten essays for our twice-monthly publications. We are also accepting proposals for our book review series, now including fiction!

If you have ideas for an essay on environmental humanities or history, or would like to review either a work of fiction (novel, collection of short stories, poetry, etc.), or a non-fiction title, please send us an abstract (around 200 words) to contact@envhistnow.com.

Submit a pitch

Pitch any topics or contribute to one of EHN’s ongoing series:

• Problems of Place

• Tools for Change

• Doing Environmental History

• Politics of Nature

• Field Notes

• Fiction and Non-fiction Book Reviews

You can also contribute to our new fast-tracked series Making Sense Of…, where we publish flash-style short texts (500–750 words) on current events and recent news, or urgently relevant new academic publications. Longer submissions may be accepted on consultation. For this series, submit the full text without an abstract. See more here.

For more information, see our submissions page and our guidelines for contributors.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Submit a pitch

ADRIENNE BROWN, “THIS IS FINE: STUDYING INTERSECTIONAL US ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY WHILE IT BURNS AROUND US”

VALERIA ZAMBIANCHI, “RETHINKING INCOMPLETE METAPHORS FOR THE EARTH SYSTEM”

KATIE KUNG, “A FUTURE WITH NON-KINS: THE RAPE OF A WALLABY”

MAGGIE MCNULTY, “DESIRE IN A DAMAGED LANDSCAPE: THE PROMISE AND PARADOX OF DENVER’S PLATTE FARM OPEN SPACE”

MARÍA DEL PILAR PERALTA ARDILA, “WHIM, NEGLIGENCE, AND SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL HARM: THE CULLING OF ESCOBAR’S HIPPO DESCENDANTS”

RAE FERNER-ROSE, “MAKING SENSE OF POLAR BEAR HEADLINES”

ROBYN GULLIVER, “INHERITED ADDICTION: HOW DECADES OF FOSSIL FUEL MARKETING BUILT THE HISTORICAL MYTHS FUELLING TODAY’S PROFITS”

Introducing “MAKING SENSE OF…”

We’re so thrilled to introduce a new series to EHN, “Making Sense Of….” In a busy world of ever-changing headlines, our contributors help you make sense of current events through the lens of the environmental humanities. Recent posts cover fossil fuel marketing, polar bear headlines, and Escobar’s hippo descendants. More coming soon!

Work with us

We’re looking for new content and review editors at Environmental History Now!

EHN is a volunteer platform for the voices of women, trans, and/or nonbinary (FLINTA*) early career scholars in environmental humanities and environmental history. We are growing – join our team as a content editor or a review editor!

The content editorial position involves working directly with our contributors and includes editing submitted essays and ensuring that the essays follow EHN’s house style guidelines, as well as creating the draft on the website. The review editorial role requires proofreading and formatting in line with the guidelines.

If you are interested, contact us at contact@envhistnow.com by May 15th! In the email, please include the following: 1) a few sentences on why you would like to join EHN as a content or review editor; 2) a summary of your editorial experience; 3) a brief bio.

The positions are open on a volunteer basis. The process of joining our team will include a short editing test and a meeting with the core team.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Team news: A thank you

EHN bids a bittersweet farewell to Dr. Emily Webster, who has worked tirelessly as an editor for many years. Her work has made EHN a better place, and we’re grateful for her contributions.

• Kimberly Fung, "FIELDWORK IN-BETWEEN: WALKING AND CUTTING GRASS IN JAPAN’S POST-MINING LANDSCAPE"

• Evelyn Ramiel, “SEX IS A HISTORY: A REVIEW OF PERFORMANCE ALL THE WAY DOWN BY RICHARD O. PRUM”

My Environment Now: Katie Kung

We’re thrilled to welcome Katie Kung to the Executive Team! Katie is the Executive Content Editor at EHN. She is a PhD candidate in Environmental Humanities at the Rachel Carson Centre, LMU Munich. She works in the intersection of environmental humanities, STS, and political ecology. Her research examines violent care, ecological visions, and the concept of invasive species–viewing it as a reflection of manifold multispecies relationships. She is a lecturer in environmental humanities and conservation history. We asked Katie about her environment this month.

Habitat

I am now living in the Heidelberg-Mannheim area of Germany. I live in the city center, which is something that weirdly comforts me since I grew up in Hong Kong. It is counterintuitive, but being in nature sometimes feels like work, since I think about things in environmental humanities all day long. Every summer, it gets scarily warmer and warmer here, and, of course, the city is not designed to handle heat waves.

Digging

I am loving dinner parties these days! I love cooking, and before I started my PhD, I actually wanted to go to culinary school... but COVID happened. I try to host a dinner party now and then (maybe once every two months) so I can cook and try out some new plating techniques, while also spending some quality time with friends in a more intimate setting.

Buds

Getting to know my new cat Berlioz.. Putting my notes together and finishing the PhD (in a year’s time?)... More dinner parties... A better work-life-sports balance... There are also quite a few ideas with the new EHN team and I am excited to see how they all unfold!

See you next month for more environmental history, now!

EHN’s new Editor-in-Chief, Teja Šosterič, has stepped into her role with the turning of the year, and she’d like to say hello!

I am grateful to be stepping in as the new editor-in-chief of EHN, and thankful to Genie for having created such a comprehensive structure. I see so much potential in this platform and I’m excited to work with the entire team to see what all we can accomplish together.

EHN will continue to publish two articles a month, either original essays, book reviews, or cross-posts from other platforms with which we build community and connections across the fields of environmental humanities and history. We continue to be committed to promoting the work of FLINTA* students and early career scholars.

We are also striving to connect locally: next month, I will be presenting at AgoraHub, an ecofeminist event in Munich, where I will be speaking about EHN, the work we do, and our mission.

I look forward to sharing more with you in the months ahead and hope you’ll join us in shaping EHN into an even more vibrant and supportive space for environmental scholarship and community.

This Month on EHN

Felice Physioc, “The Impac Assessment as Archive: Historical Approaches to Regulatory Documents from Alberta’s Oil Sands

Robyn Gulliver, “Counting What Counts: Preserving Environmental Activism History”

As you may have heard, Genie Yoo will be stepping down as Editor-in-Chief after serving for two years. Here is her final message.

To the EHN community:

As we prepare to ring in the New Year, we have some exciting news.

It has been two years since Elizabeth Hameeteman, EHN’s founder, offered me the role of Editor-in-Chief. I still remember our initial discussions. I could not imagine EHN without Elizabeth, the heart and soul of this incredible intellectual community; yet, in her generosity, she had the foresight to realize that EHN, as a platform dedicated to those who identify as woman, trans, and nonbinary, had to be independent and sustainable without relying on any specific individual. This always had to be a team effort. We understood that this required a new publication structure and a collective of devoted members. The latter manifested itself in the form of a superb executive team. Over the past two years, we have stabilized EHN’s workflow, publication schedule, and structure, while recruiting new members to both editorial and review teams. It is now the perfect time for me to step down and to encourage new ideas, directions, and energy. I am excited to announce that Teja Šosterič, who has been our Executive Content Editor, will be EHN’s new Editor-in-Chief. I am equally thrilled that Katie Kung, who has been one of our Content Editors, will serve as our new Executive Content Editor.

It has been a blessing and a pleasure to work for this platform and community. I am especially grateful to Elizabeth Hameeteman and the executive team – Teja Šosterič, Deniz Karakaş, Emma Moesswilde, and Ramya Swayamprakash – all of whom served as constant sources of inspiration and support. I similarly appreciate our tireless content and review editors, whose expertise and consistent attention to detail I admire. Finally, I would like to thank you – our contributors and readers – who have made this journey intellectually enriching. I so value the community I’ve found here and am beyond confident that EHN’s best days are ahead.

In gratitude, your outgoing Editor-in-Chief,
Genie Yoo

We would like to announce the members of EHN’s new executive team:

Teja Šosterič: Editor-in-Chief
Katie Kung: Executive Content Editor
Deniz Karakaş: Executive Review Editor
Emma Moesswilde: Outreach Coordinator
Ramya Swayamprakash: Executive Fundraiser

We would also like to acknowledge and welcome new and remaining members of the content and review editorial teams.

Content Editorial Team

Samia Cohen
Amelia Diehl
Nina Foster
Josephine Goldman
Caroline Kreysel
Sindi-Leigh McBride

Review Editorial Team

Lívia Regina Batista
Adrienne Brown
Katherine Cheung
Evelyn Ramiel
Emily Webster

Thank you for your continued support of EHN as we begin this new journey. Here’s to many more!

As many of you know, Environmental History Now is a 100% independent, volunteer-run, award-winning platform to showcase the environment-related work and expertise of graduate students and early career scholars who identify as women, trans and/or nonbinary people. Last year we managed to raise $300, which allowed us to cover our web hosting fees.

This year, we are aiming to raise $1000 to cover our web hosting fees for this year and next ($700) and offer our contributors a small token of appreciation.

support us

In 2024-2025, EHN received over 40,000 visitors from more than 70 countries featuring 20 authors from 17 countries across various levels of their scholarly careers. EHN is truly an inclusive and open space. In 2019, EHN started as an endeavor and idea of our founder Elizabeth Hameeteman. To continue our mission, we need your support.

To meet our fundraising goal in 2025, we are writing to ask if you’d be willing to commit $50 to support EHN. If 10 of you agree, that would take us past our fundraising goals. If 20 donate, we will exceed our goal by $500, ensuring EHN’s financial future.

If you are able to join this effort and make such a commitment, please visit our Ko-Fi website. We would love to hear from you.

join our fundraising effort

Thank you for your consideration and your continued support for EHN!

To wrap up this year’s anniversary week, the executive editorial team decided to create a retrospective featuring some of our favorite essays, two from this past year and two from years past. They represent the wide range of topics and themes that have resonated with our community. From this past year, Nina Foster speaks to the importance of small mammals and microbial soil in understanding broader environmental change, while Genna Kane demonstrates the importance of understanding “settlement” as a process through a historical tracing of reclaimed land in East Boston. From years past, Aadita Chaudhury takes us on a journey into the dreamscape geography of her hybrid homes, while April Anson unravels the logic and rhetoric of American ecofascism in this age of hyper media saturation. In the spirit of showing the range and diversity of essays published on EHN this year, we have also created an “archive” of original publications in English and in translation; essays crossposted in collaboration with our friends at NiCHE, Edge Effects, and Arcadia; and our special anniversary releases from this week. Thank you for celebrating our seventh year as a community. Enjoy and keep reading!

ORIGINAL ESSAYS IN ENGLISH

• “‘Premature Electrification’: Petro-Masculine Panic in the EV Era” by Amelia Diehl

• “The Raised Bog Underneath the Farm: Walking into the Past and the Present” by Caroline Kreysel

• “The Role of Natural History Museums in Science and Communication” by Araceli Ramos

• “Fluctuating and Fragmented: The History of Regulating the Tidal Salt Marsh near Wood Island in East Boston, Massachusetts” by Genna (Genevieve) Kane

• “Embracing an Atypical Approach to Invasion Science” by Diana Rodríguez Cala

• “The Vernacular is Not Barbaric” by Mennaallah Abotaleb

• “The Case for Weighing Voles on Your Vacation” by Nina Foster

• “When Deeper Isn’t Better: A Mining Misadventure in Early Modern Sumatra” by Wenrui Zhao

• Book Review: “Hope and Dystopia: Learning From Climate Fiction” by Kate Prengel

ORIGINAL ESSAYS IN ENGLISH AND IN TRANSLATION

• “Injuries to the Environment and the Guarani in Cerrado during Brazil’s Military Dictatorship” by Agnes Para Poty Rodrigues

  • Portuguese translation: “Os Danos Para O Ambiente E Para Os Guarani No Cerrado Durante A Ditadura Militar” by Agnes Para Poty Rodriguez

• “The Hegemony of the West in Invasion Science” by Diana Rodríguez Cala

  • Part I: “Present Conditions and Paths to Change“

  • Part II: “European Empires and the Problem of Invasive Species“

  • Castilian Spanish translation: “La Hegemonía Del Occidente En La Ciencia De La Invasión: Estado Actual Y Caminos Hacia El Cambio” by Diana Rodríguez Cala

CROSSPOSTED ESSAYS

• “Turning the Tide: A Queer Look at the Orca” by Teja Šosterič (from NiCHE)

• “Plant Blindness and ‘Seeing’ Vegetal Timescales” by Katherine Cheung (from Edge Effects)

• “Axes on the Ground: Wolves and Women on the North American Frontier” by Caroline Abbott (from Arcadia)

EHN 7TH ANNIVERSARY ESSAYS

• “Strange Assemblages: The Environmental Uncanny and the British Wildlife Park” by Rae Ferner-Rose

• Book Review: “Collective Memory and Survivance” by Katie Ione Craney

• “Living with Smoke: A Comic for the Fire Season” by Mica Jorgenson (crosspost from NiCHE)

• “Scaling the Ivory Tower: The Neo-liberalization of Academia” by Valeria Zambianchi and Ana Buchadas

If you love what we do and want to keep us going, please contribute to our fundraising drive to help cover our costs and keep us sustainable!

FUNDING FOR 7+ MORE YEARS

Keep EHN running

Today on EHN

We're thrilled to share a crosspost with our friends at NiCHE. Mica Jorgenson’s haunting “Living with Smoke: A Comic for the Fire Season”. Read the whole comic on our website!

New Editors

This anniversary week, we’re thrilled to introduce three new members of the EHN editorial staff:

Nina Foster, Caroline Kreysel, and Amelia Diehl all contributed to EHN this past year. We’re so lucky to have them on the team!

Nina Foster

“The Case for Weighing Voles on Your Vacation”

Caroline Kreysel

“The Raised Bog Underneath the Farm: Walking into the Past and the Present”

Amelia Diehl

“‘Premature Electrification’: Petro-Masculine Panic in the EV Era”

Every Anniversary Week, we celebrate EHN’s successes and ask you to help us continue our work with our annual fundraising drive. Your contributions are more important than ever, and help us cover our costs and keep our team running.

Chip In Today

Support EHN's fundraising drive

New Posts

We kicked off the week yesterday with a new post from Rae Ferner-Rose, "Strange Assemblages: The Environmental Uncanny and the British Wildlife Park."

Today, we’re featuring our latest book review from Katie Ione Craney, who reviewed Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North, ed. Kenneth L. Pratt and Scott A. Heyes.

EHN’s new book review series features reviews of books about environmental history, environmental studies, and fiction. Contribute today!

If you value what we do at EHN, can you chip in $6 or whatever you can afford to our annual fundraising drive? Your contributions make it possible to continue to host our site and maintain our award-winning work.

Contribute $6

Between July and December, EHN would like to prepare six essays for our monthly publications. We are also launching a new book review series! If you have ideas for an essay on environmental history or environmental humanities, or would like to write a book review, please send us an abstract (200 words) using this form or email your pitch to contact@envhistnow.com by May 19.

Please feel free contribute to one of EHN’s ongoing series: problems of place, tools for change, doing environmental history, politics of nature, and field notes. For more information, see our submissions page and our guidelines for contributors.

We look forward to hearing from you!

submit a pitch

we were delighted to share two pieces, including our first bilingual piece of the year and a crosspost with our friends at Arcadia. Check them out below!

• Agnes Para Poty Rodrigues, “Os Danos para o Ambiente e para os Guarani no Cerrado Durante a Ditadura Militar” / Injuries to the Environment and the Guarani in Cerrado During Brazil’s Military Dictatorship”

• Caroline Abbott, “Axes on the Ground: Wolves and Women on the North American Frontier”

SUBMIT A PITCH

My Environment Now: Deniz Karakaş

We asked Deniz, executive review editor for EHN, about her environment this month.

Habitat

I'm based in Antalya, a southern coastal city in Turkey. Over the last two months, I've been traveling back and forth between my hometown, Ankara, and Istanbul to visit archives and for field trips. When encountering two coastal landscapes, two metropolitan cities, and three unique ecologies, what strikes me the most is the air and noise pollution, especially in Istanbul. For some time now, ongoing urban renewal projects —justified by concerns about the expected Istanbul earthquake—have become the primary modus operandi of spatial and urban development. At the same time, adding up, I think, to more congestion and gentrification. As I walk through various neighbourhoods, through the streets, the difference between my hometown and Istanbul becomes immediately recognisable: the ongoing disposition between water and land with rubbles, twisted steel fibers, brick dusts, the smell of cement and the relentless noise of trucks, drills, and crushers arising from demolition and construction works.

Digging

This month, I've loved reading and thinking with The Last Neanderthal by Canadian author Claire Cameron and Broken April by Albanian author Ismail Kadare. At the beginning of March in Istanbul, SALT launched a new forum on Water Assemblies, which brings together academics, practitioners, artists, and relations with water. I enjoyed attending some of the hybrid public discussions. Some talks were postponed though, likely due to the recent widespread protests. These events together led me to think about climate justice, environmental justice, and the importance of solidarity to build more just, more equitable worlds. I also find the weekly videos on the Louisiana Channel very inspiring. Every week, they post a new short video interview featuring a visual artist, a writer, a designer, or a musician —and they talk about their works. What I find particularly inspiring and wholesome is the original content showcasing the artists' perception of the world.

Buds

I'm looking forward to seeing a gallery exhibit next month on volcanoes before it closes in May. And I've started working on a new article about the early modern mapping and representation of the underground, hoping to finish the first part by next month. I'm also inspired by Cameron's novel. With the weather improving for hiking, I want to visit some archaeological sites around Antalya, especially Karain Cave , which has been on my to-do list for quite some time. I'm also very excited to start a scuba diving program for beginners in early summer.

KEEP US SUSTAINABLE

Bodies and Sexuality in Gilead: A Queer Ecofeminist Reading of the Handmaid's Tale

Asmae Ourkiya

If you ever wondered what the world would look like as a right-wing, conservative, white supremacist dystopia, then Margaret Atwood’s masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale is for you. In her well-known novel, Atwood links nature’s oppression and women’s subjugation by showing the consequences of environmental degradation on women, the LGBTQ+ community, and marginalised groups. The Hulu adaptation of the novel, created by Bruce Miller and starring Elisabeth Moss and Samira Wiley, was released in 2017 and has attracted millions of viewers, including myself. While binge watching all three seasons and impatiently waiting for the fourth one, I could not help but think about how many acts of cruelty against women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and marginalised people are actually the norm in a number of societies. It also made me realise that the show amplifies what queer ecofeminism stands for.

Problems of Place: The Body of a Trans Anthropologist

Juniper Lewis

On January 1, 2018, myself and other trans students and employees of UW Madison had transition-related surgery and hormones covered by our insurance. By the first of February of that same year, we no longer had that coverage. Now, after being sued by two incredible graduate students, the university is required to provide transition-related care for its employees. These events made it clear that this body, my body, is not quite mine. The people who decide what I can and cannot do with it hate who I am. They do not know me, but they do not want me to change and have the body I want. My dysphoria comes and goes gently, but it is not a mere lack of dysphoria I seek but euphoria. When the average life expectancy of trans people in the United States is approximately thirty five years old, we must see the structural problems that are hurting us.

Problems of Place: Finding Fire in British Columbia and Norway

Mica Jorgensen

I was in Norway to develop a comparative history of wildfire and smoke management, and as I looked at this familiar landscape I knew immediately I was on the right track. I wanted to know how people in both countries experienced catastrophic burns, dealt with air pollution, and managed fuels through practices like prescribed burning. Sure, there were differences in the forestry and fire regimes of British Columbia and my soon-to-be adopted home in Southern Norway, but those differences were insubstantial in comparison to the fundamental similarities between the two places. Or so I thought.

KEEP US SUSTAINABLE

Contribute

Did you make a New Year’s Resolution to write more, put your work out in the world, do something you’re passionate about, or share your research with a broader audience? We invite early-career woman, trans, and non-binary identifying folks in the environmental humanities to pitch work to EHN! You can use this form to share an abstract, and our editors will be in touch!

SUBMIT A PITCH

This year has already posed multiple challenges as we witness and experience the catastrophic consequences of human-induced climate change. Just in the past few weeks, this has included the gargantuan wildfires in Los Angeles, the intensification of the polar vortex, and the record snowstorms and frigid temperatures throughout the Midwest, the South, and the East Coast of the United States. At the same time, within the first few hours of Donald Trump’s second term–and by executive order–the U.S. has pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization; declared the recognition of only two genders and revoked existing orders against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation; eliminated federal diversity programs and initiatives, many dating back to the Civil Rights Era, and created a strawman out of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; implemented some of the cruelest tactics–physical, psychological, and verbal–against migrants and immigrants, by closing the door to asylum seekers, by allowing ICE agents to pursue raids targeting Latinx communities, and by attempting to end birthright citizenship, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This New Year has been ushered in with chants of “drill, baby, drill” with fist pumps and Nazi salutes.

The executive team wanted to assure our community at Environmental History Now that we are devoted to continuing to provide an inclusive space, especially for those who are most marginalized, not only in our respective academic fields but also in our societies and institutions. Elizabeth Hameeteman, EHN’s founder, wanted this space to promote women, trans, and nonbinary students, scholars, and writers, who have long been overlooked, belittled, and marginalized in the fields of environmental history and environmental humanities. I believe that it has become even more imperative to do so. We plan to roll out several publication and educational initiatives this year, focusing on themes, topics, and events that we believe can best inform, expand, and bring our community closer together. We hope you will join us and continue to support us in this endeavor.

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Check out recent & related pieces on EHN below!

Recently…

• Mennaallah Abotaleb, "The Vernacular is Not Barbaric"

• Nina Foster, "The Case for Weighing Voles on Your Vacation"

…Related

• Ester van 't Veen, "Fearing the Subject of Study: The Climate Crisis and the Environmental History"

• Nicole Hodgson, "Thriving in a World of Plants: The Possibilities of Ecobiography"

• Amelia Diehl, “Premature Electrification: Petro-Masculine Panic in the EV Era”

Contribute

Did you make a New Year’s Resolution to write more, put your work out in the world, do something you’re passionate about, or share your research with a broader audience? We invite early-career woman, trans, and non-binary identifying folks in the environmental humanities to pitch work to EHN! You can use this form to share an abstract, and our editors will be in touch!

SUBMIT A PITCH

• Diana Rodriguez Cala, “Embracing an Atypical Approach to Invasion Science”

Further Reading

Did you know that our pieces are often published as part of an ongoing series? This month’s essay is in our Field Notes series, where contributors talk about their research approaches and experience in environmental history and humanities.

Do you want to write about your own experiences in the field? We’d love to hear from you!

Support us

If you value what we do at EHN, have you contributed to our fundraising drive to cover the operating costs of our site and to help keep our volunteer-run team sustainable. A huge thank you to everyone who made contributions, big or small. Your support means the world to us!

KEEP US SUSTAINABLE

• Katherine Cheung, “Plant Blindness and ‘Seeing’ Vegetal Timescales”

• Genna Kane, “Fluctuating and Fragmented: The History of Regulating the Tidal Salt Marsh Near Wood Island in East Boston, Massachusetts”

My Environment Now: Teja Šosterič

We asked Teja, executive content editor for EHN, about her environment this month.

Habitat

I am living in Munich, where I've been for the past three years doing my PhD. I am constantly surprised by the passage of time, and how even these seemingly temporary spaces can become home. I spend my time working and reading, connecting with friends, and exploring the city. I am lucky to be surrounded by queer and neurodivergent people who enrich my life. Through Munich flows the Isar, an excellent river, where it is possible to swim in the summer (and for the brave, in the winter). After a few years of being very active at my research center, the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, I have spent the last year more focused on writing. I joined the EHN team in January and have been enjoying working with the people and texts.

Digging

This past year has brought a lot of changes for me in my personal life, most importantly a diagnosis of autism. While challenging, I am also learning more about myself, which has been instrumental in feeling comfortable in my world. In addition to my PhD topic, which is on neoliberalism in contemporary American climate ficiton, I am pursuing a lot of my other interests, including reading and researching about orcas. Marine mammals have always been a great interest of mine, and I feel strongly connected to the sea (and all bodies of water), so I enjoy spending time reading and thinking about the creatures who live there. I also like exercising and have recently begun strength training, which has been really fun.

Buds

This semester, I will be teaching a class at the LMU on my thesis topic, for which I am very excited. I am also looking forward to an academic visit next year to the University of Berkeley. I am also very happy to be a part of the EHN team, hoping that I can continue to support our editors and authors in my role as executive content editor. I think our platform is an excellent medium to promote women, non-binary, and trans people, and I look forward to seeing how it will progress in the future.

Support us

If you value what we do at EHN, have you contributed to our fundraising drive to cover the operating costs of our site and to help keep our volunteer-run team sustainable. A huge thank you to everyone who made contributions, big or small. Your support means the world to us!

KEEP US SUSTAINABLE

We celebrated our anniversary week September 9-13 and were so delighted to feature these wonderful new pieces:

• Amelia Diehl, “‘PREMATURE ELECTRIFICATION:’ PETRO-MASCULINE PANIC IN THE EV ERA”

• Caroline Kreysel, “THE RAISED BOG UNDERNEATH THE FARM: WALKING INTO THE PAST AND THE PRESENT”

• Teja Šosterič,“TURNING THE TIDE: A QUEER LOOK AT THE ORCA”

• Araceli Ramos, “THE ROLE OF NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM COLLECTIONS IN CONSERVATION SCIENCE AND COMMUNICATION”

….and, we shared a retrospective on three pieces featuring the life world of plants, animals, and water. First, Nicole Hodgson’s essay on plants, anti-colonialism, and the methodological possibilities of ecobiography. Second, Yolima Vargas Garzón’s exciting vignette on the lives of animals—namely, runaway hippos—in Colombia and the tensions between conservation and control. Finally, Lucile Truffy’s historical account of a river pollution case in France and conflicting reports about the alleged polluters.

Support us

As part of our Anniversary Week celebrations, we also launched a fundraising drive to cover the operating costs of our site and to help keep our volunteer-run team sustainable. A huge thank you to everyone who made contributions, big or small. Your support means the world to us!

And, if you’ve been meaning to chip in a few units of your chosen currency to keep us going, you still can! Just click the button below, and thank you!

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Coming up

Our editorial team has some big plans in the works for the final quarter of the year, including new pieces, engaging conversations, and a look at what some of our contributors are up to when they’re not writing for EHN. Watch this space, and thanks as ever for being a part of our community.

Before we conclude our Anniversary Week coverage, we need to ask a favor. If you value what we do at EHN, can you help support us by donating to our fundraising drive?

Support our fundraising drive

EHN’s editorial board is made up of volunteer graduate and early career scholars, and we need your help covering our costs. Every year, we pay for our web hosting platform, and prices are going up. We also purchasing podcast transcriptions to keep our work accessible. And, our hardworking team does all of this work for free on top of their busy schedules; we’d love to be able to give them some coffee money.

Currently, we’re almost halfway to our fundraising goal of $1000. Any donation will help keep us going and make sure EHN stays sustainable for the long haul.

This week on EHN

We’ve been so delighted to share posts from contributors all week long. Take a look:

• Amelia Diehl, “‘PREMATURE ELECTRIFICATION:’ PETRO-MASCULINE PANIC IN THE EV ERA”

• Caroline Kreysel, “THE RAISED BOG UNDERNEATH THE FARM: WALKING INTO THE PAST AND THE PRESENT”

• Teja Šosterič,“TURNING THE TIDE: A QUEER LOOK AT THE ORCA”

• Araceli Ramos, “THE ROLE OF NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM COLLECTIONS IN CONSERVATION SCIENCE AND COMMUNICATION”

….and, we’re sharing a retrospective on three pieces featuring the life world of plants, animals, and water. First, Nicole Hodgson’s essay on plants, anti-colonialism, and the methodological possibilities of ecobiography. Second, Yolima Vargas Garzón’s exciting vignette on the lives of animals—namely, runaway hippos—in Colombia and the tensions between conservation and control. Finally, Lucile Truffy’s historical account of a river pollution case in France and conflicting reports about the alleged polluters.

You can also browse our whole archive of the past year below:

September 2023

• “Ethics Beyond Ethics Clearance: The Politics of Citation, Analytical Authority and Private Knowledges” by Josephine Goldman

• “Smoke and Plastic: Feeling the Environmental Past” by Catherine Peters

October 2023

• “Drones in Environmental Humanities Research” by Mica Jorgenson

• “The Hidden Seeds of the Alexandria Library” by Mennaallah Abotaleb

• Ecotones Now Podcast: Episode 2.1 ft. Jessica M. DeWitt

November 2023

• “Reading Climate Justice through the Indian Farmers’ Movement” by Sritama Chatterjee

• “Environmental Histories vs Environmental Futures? In Conversation with Josie Chambers” by Valeria Zambianchi

• Ecotones Now Podcast: Episode 2.2 ft. Knar Gavin

• Ecotones Now Podcast: Episode 2.3 ft. Amrita DasGupta (Part I)

December 2023

• “From Counting to Encountering: Whale Watching in British Columbia” by Bethan le Masurier

• “We Are Running Out of Time to Control Escobar’s Hippos” by Yolima Vargas Garzón

• Ecotones Now Podcast: Episode 2.4 ft. Amrita DasGupta (Part II)

• Ecotones Now Podcast: Episode 2.5 ft. Ysabel Muñoz Martínez

January 2024

• “EHN Top Posts of 2023” by EHN Team

• Ecotones Now Podcast: Episode 2.6 ft. Esme Garlake

February 2024

• “How to Wild an Environmental Historian” by Isobel Akerman

March 2024

• “Orhan Pamuk, Me, and Two Men From the Seventeenth Century” by Duygu Yıldırım

• “Seemingly Objective? The Colonial Power of University Rankings” by Valeria Zambianchi and Kato Van Speybroeck

April 2024

• “Fearing the Subject of Study: The Climate Crisis and the Environmental Historian” by Esther van t Veen

• “More-than-Human Remains: Reckoning with Ivory in (Post)Colonial Museums” by S. Marek Muller

May 2024

• “Thriving in a World of Plants: The Possibilities of Ecobiography” by Nicole Hodgson

June 2024

• “From Firstborns to Equal Shares: Inheritance, Land, and Ecology in Revolutionary France” by Netta Green

• “Death on the Aude: River Pollution, the French Formica Company, and Local Fishers in 1983” by Lucile Truffy

July 2024

• “Baguio at 115: Colonial Legacies in Contemporary Cityscapes in the Philippines” by Geri Mae Tolentino and Ellen O. White

August 2024

• “Hercegovina Kalifornija: Landscape and legacies in the Neretva Valley” by Mela Žuljević (from Women* Write the Balkans)

September 2024: Anniversary Week Essays

• “Premature Electrification”: Petro-masculine Panic in the EV Era” by Amelia Diehl

• “The Raised Bog Underneath the Farm: Walking into the Past and the Present” by Caroline Kreysel

• “Turning the Tide: A Queer Look at the Orca” by Teja Šosterič (from NiCHE)

• “The Role of Natural History Museum Collections in Science and Communication” by Araceli Ramos

Finally, thank YOU for being a part of the EHN community. Help us look forward to another incredible year, and many more to come, by donating to our fundraising drive. Every little bit helps keep our community going!

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