As in previous years, there will be a “Green Stream” in the AHA annual Conference to highlight research in environmental history. In the last 40 years environmental history has strengthened as a sub-discipline as scholars have challenged and re-cast dominant narratives to acknowledge nature as a historical agent. Through our work on forests and wetlands; agriculture, animals and mining; drought and flood; fire and ice; pollution, climate and more, we have considered the more-than-human world that has shaped our history. But despite this work, the issues that helped spawn environmental history remain unresolved. We have unfinished business to address. In these urgent times of planetary crisis, we must reflect on our scholarly practice and reconsider how our work can confront historical silences, intervene in political debate and shatter community complacency to create a better future. How can environmental historians engage with communities, governments and the public to help promote the urgency of our findings? As we seek to understand contemporary environmental issues by examining the ‘finished business’ of the past, the Green Stream invites individual papers, panel sessions and roundtable discussions.
Abstracts due 31 May 2021