Short profiles of university and course syllabi, and collaborative syllabi projects on Environment and Society.
Jane Carruthers traces the development of environmental history, showing how it emerged in the 1970s from the environmental movement with a focus on addressing urgent issues such as resource depletion, climate change, and sustainability, while aiming to bridge the sciences and humanities.
Harriet Ritvo explores the intersection of environmental history and environmental concerns, emphasizing how the discipline reflects the growing awareness of global environmental challenges.
Thomas Lekan examines the history of wildlife conservation through the figure of Bernhard Grzimek and the creation of the Serengeti as a protected tourist landscape.
The Age of the Anthropoiescene is a time of sympoietic tanglings with the human and more-than-human ghosts of deep time.
In the fall of 2024, Amitav Ghosh visited the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society as part of the project “One Book—Many Worlds: Munich Reads Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh.” This exhibition emerges from the multifaceted discussion of climate change and its challenges conducted in the “One Book—Many Worlds” project and grapples with the question of the role of literary fiction in interdisciplinary academic exchange and climate communication beyond academia. Taking Amitav Ghosh’s recent writings on the global climate crisis, in particular the novel Gun Island, as a vantage point, the chapters in this exhibition engage with various aspects Gun Island from different disciplinary perspectives, drawing on storylines and narrative elements that allow a multifocal engagement with different social and ecological repercussions of climate change. Additionally, pieces from the spring 2025 taumelnd trauen, verschlungen bleiben student exhibition and winning and honorable mentions from the 2025 “Tell the Untold!” writing competition take the provocation to think creatively about the past and future of our environment and world further. Thereby, the exhibition chapters create a web of diverse thoughts on and readings of the role of storytelling for the contemporary interlinked social and environmental crises from a number of perspectives.
About This Exhibition
Reflections on Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island by Markus Vogt.
In the fall of 2024, Amitav Ghosh visited the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society as part of the project “One Book—Many Worlds: Munich Reads Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh.” This exhibition emerges from the multifaceted discussion of climate change and its challenges conducted in the “One Book—Many Worlds” project and grapples with the question of the role of literary fiction in interdisciplinary academic exchange and climate communication beyond academia. Taking Amitav Ghosh’s recent writings on the global climate crisis, in particular the novel Gun Island, as a vantage point, the chapters in this exhibition engage with various aspects Gun Island from different disciplinary perspectives, drawing on storylines and narrative elements that allow a multifocal engagement with different social and ecological repercussions of climate change. Additionally, pieces from the spring 2025 taumelnd trauen, verschlungen bleiben student exhibition and winning and honorable mentions from the 2025 “Tell the Untold!” writing competition take the provocation to think creatively about the past and future of our environment and world further. Thereby, the exhibition chapters create a web of diverse thoughts on and readings of the role of storytelling for the contemporary interlinked social and environmental crises from a number of perspectives.
About This Exhibition
In an increasingly inhumane world, this article argues that socioecological justice can only be achieved by embracing human nature.
Maril Hazlett calls for a more critical and nuanced reassessment of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, examining both its impact and its limitations in reaching diverse sectors of society.
Akrish Adhikari argues that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring sparked a lasting global environmental movement, continuing to inspire organizations like the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and shape modern ecological advocacy.
Christof Mauch highlights the global and enduring influence of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, emphasizing her prophetic style and lasting impact on worldwide environmental thought and action.
