Dagomar Degroot, a PhD candidate in environmental history at York University, Toronto, Canada, is working with David Hsiung to develop a panel proposal on the relationship between pre-industrial warfare and environment for the 2011 ASEH conference in Phoenix,  April 12-16.  As the panel presently stands, Dagomar’s  paper would uncover links between the fluctuating climatic history of the 17th century and contemporary Dutch warfare, while David would trace energy flows during the American Revolution. They need a third panelist.

Interested colleagues can reach Dagomar  by email at dagomard@gmail.com.  The deadline for proposals is June 30, 2010.

Tim Sistrunk would like to organize a panel for the 2011 ASEH conference tentatively named: “Medieval European Approaches to Issues of Sustainability”.

The society’s call for papers is fairly rich with suggestions and widely disparate possibilities.  I, myself, hope to contribute something on “Regulating the Harvest in the Late Middle Ages”.  This will be legal material, but others should feel free to exercise their own peculiar passions.  If a narrower theme emerges from those interested, we can narrow the title of the session.  It appears that the conference organizers hope to accommodate different kinds of contributions in different venues, so no one should feel restricted by this panel appeal.  Panel submissions are due to conference organizers by June 30.  I would hope to have your contributions by June 20.  Please respond to Tsistrunk@csuchico.edu.

International Conference “Landscapes and Societies in Ancient and Medieval Europe East of the Elbe. Interactions between Environmental Settings and Cultural Transformations”

26-27 March 2010

Fourth International Conference of the Interdisciplinary Association “Gentes trans Albiam – Europe East of the Elbe in the Middle Ages.” To be held on the Keele Campus of York University, Toronto, York Research Tower 519.

Organized by the Department of History of York University, the Graduate School “Human Development in Landscapes” (Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel) and the German Historical Institute in Warsaw.

Landscapes can be defined, in the words of Denis E. Cosgrove, as “visibly distinct regions.” Landscapes can be understood as the natural environments in which a society is embedded, or as the set of representations with which members of a society observe and describe a region and give it significance. The idea of landscape is dependant on the one hand on the material reality of a given region, on the other hand on the sense attached to it by human beings beholding it.

Medieval Europe east of the Elbe presents a particularly interesting field for the investigation of landscape transformations. The area is characterized by many features that clearly distinguishes it from the Mediterranean regions throughout the Middle Ages – absence of Roman traditions, late appearance of Latin culture, colonization movement, chartered towns. There were generally independent developments concerning society, economy, and religion which led to the creation of a distinct cultural area. All of this makes this part of the European continent attractive for a consideration of large-scale and longue durée interactions between landscapes and societies.

The programme includes keynote addresses by Professor Piotr Górecki (University of California Riverside) and by Professor Jüri Kivimäe (University of Toronto), as well as 21 papers by presenters from Germany, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Canada and the US in the fields of history, archaeology, palaeobotany, palaeozoology and musicology.

For information about the programme and registration please see the website of “Gentes trans Albiam – Europe East of the Elbe in the Middle Ages” (http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~aklammt/).

Main sponsors: Graduate School “Human Development in Landscapes” (Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel), German Historical Institute in Warsaw, Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.

Conference Committee: Sunhild Kleingärtner (skleingaertner@ufg.uni-kiel.de), Sébastien Rossignol (rossigno@yorku.ca),  Donat Wehner (donatwehner@gshdl.uni-kiel.de)

The 2011 meeting of the American Society for Environmental History will be held in Phoenix, Arizona, April 12-16. The organizing committee has set “History and Sustainability: Stories of Progress, Hubris, Decline, and Resilience” as the conference theme, which is seen as welcoming papers on earlier periods and parts of the world outside North America. The committee would especially like to see medieval Europe represented in multi-period panels as well as some entire sessions on ancient/medieval/early modern topics. For the latter such ideas as sustainable or stable human/nature relationships; stipulated populations’ demand for food, fiber, fodder, etc., in relation to the ecological dynamics of their geographical range; scarcities and limits, and social response to over-consumption; means of restricting demand; resulting short- and long-term ecological changes have been mentioned. We have many stories about sustainability or its failure and should consider how to tell others about them.

Another centre of interest for Phoenix (as for the Portland meeting this spring) is the environmental history of war. Several panels were recruited for the Portland meeting but organizers were disappointed to have none but the most recent periods. If you have or want to develop a study on war and environment in early Europe, your interest will be most welcome. For now, contact Richard Tucker (rptucker@umich.edu) for further information, but he may pass you on to another committee member.

The conference is open to various formats of panels and presentations. All proposals will be received on line starting in March 2010. The deadline for submission is June 30, 2010.

Organizers of the Phoenix meeting have already planned extensive field trips to explore the desert in spring as well as other activities. The ASEH web site is www.aseh.net

The European Society for Environmental History next meets in Turku, Finland, 28 June-2 July 2011. Posters, papers, and panels are invited. The main conference theme is “Encounters of Sea and Land”. Organizers have suggested such topics as:

• The emergence of environmental crises of the seas
• Phases of conservation of inland waters, seas, and coasts
• Historical perspectives on marine biodiversity
• History of whaling, fishing and overfishing
• Exploitation of marine resources, such as water, gas, oil, seaweeds, in the past
• History of marine pollution including material flows from land to sea
• History of maritime mobility
• Development of catchment areas as environmental and socio-economic systems
• Environmental history of urban coastal areas
• Landscapes and seascapes: changes in the environment and interpretations
• Islands and archipelagos as natural habitats and social communities

Medievalists might also consider such ideas as a set of papers relating human uses of the medieval Baltic and the medieval Mediterranean. Panels on other themes will of course also be supported.  Organizers have mentioned:

• Reconstruction of historical weather and climate, and adaptation to climate change in the past
• Environmental history of the polar regions
• Development of environmental movements
• Dimensions of forest history
• Urban environmental history
• History of man-animal relationship, food supply and biodiversity
• Industrial environmental history
• Production, consumption and waste: commodity chains in environmental history
• Cultural values and economic interests: retrospective environmental analyses
• Theories and methods in environmental history

Talk to colleagues in the medieval field and people who work on other periods, too. For details on submissions and other matters see the conference web site at http://eseh2011.utu.fi/ The deadline for submission is 2010 May 3, so you will have to make your arrangements before we gather in Kalamazoo. The ESEH web site is http://eseh.org

If anyone interested in organizing a medieval panel for the International Water History Association conference in June (see announcement below), please contact Roberta Magnusson (rmagnusson@ou.edu).

Here’s the CFP:
The International Water History Association organizes a Water History Conference in Delft, The Netherlands, in June 16-19 – 2010. The conference will be a unique opportunity to exchange existing and develop new insights on the history of our most precious resources. The conference is co-organized by IWHA, Delft University of Technology and UNESCO-IHE.

The deadline for sunmitting abstracts is January 15, 2010!!

A link to the online abstract submission page can be found at the website conference www.waterhistory2010.citg.tudelft.nl

The program committee welcomes abstracts for individual papers and proposals for complete sessions. Session proposals can either include three papers and a commentator or four papers. It is encouraged to include chairs in the session proposal as well. Proposals for double sessions are possible as well. The conference does not predefine topics for abstracts and sessions. Subjects and topics can range from rivers to drops, from seas to mountain lakes, from technologies to cultures, as long as the subjects are related to water (are “wet”) and historical.

All abstracts, both individual and from session proposals, will be reviewed by the program committee and should be submitted by the main author through the online submission system. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words. In addition, session proposals (consisting of session title, 100 word description, names and affiliations of presenters and titles of their papers, names and affiliations of commentator and chair), should be send separately to the chair of the program committee Maurits W. Ertsen at m.w.ertsen@tudelft.nl

Decisions on acceptance are foreseen to be available on March 15th 2010. The final conference program will be available on May 15th 2010. To appear on the program, presenters with accepted abstracts need to register before April 30th 2010. Registration will open in January 2010