The CALL FOR PROPOSALS for ASEH 2025 is now open! The ASEH 2025 Annual Conference will be held at the Omni William Penn in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 9-13, 2025. The conference will feature research on all facets of environmental history, from any geographical or temporal context, especially related to the conference theme, Forging Environments: Confluence, Resilience, Intersectionality. The Program Committee welcomes traditional panels, individual papers, teaching and pedagogy sessions, innovative formats, and sessions that encourage active audience participation.  This year, conference sessions are set at 75 minutes including the requisite time for discussion. Please note that this is a new, experimental format, and that because the time allocated for sessions is shorter than it has been in the past, we envision panels of 4 papers of 12-13 minutes each. Commentators will be permitted for roundtables or other nontraditional formats, but not for traditional or lightning panels. The deadline for submissions is August 1, 2024. To submit a proposal, CLICK HERE

Looking for Co-panelists or Interested in Chairing a Session? Check the ASEH 2025 Open Sessions page. On June 26 at 2pmEDT, join us via Zoom for an Open Sessions Workshop! This event is designed to facilitate panel creation and help scholars meet one another in preparation for Pittsburgh.

APPLY FOR PRIZES AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS

ASEH is now accepting applications for research fellowships, and submissions and nominations for prizes and awards. Click on the links below for more information and instructions about how to apply and submit nominations.

All deadlines are November 20, 2023.

PRIZES

Each year, ASEH awards five prizes for outstanding scholarship in the field of environmental history. Please read the instructions for submitting your work for consideration for each prize listed below.

George Perkins Marsh Prize for best book in environmental history

Alice Hamilton Prize for best article outside journal Environmental History 

Leopold-Hidy Prize for best article in journal Environmental History (with Forest History Society)

Rachel Carson Prize for best dissertation in environmental history

ASEH-FHS Graduate Student Essay Prize 

FELLOWSHIPS

The ASEH currently offers four research fellowships: the Hal Rothman Dissertation Fellowship, the J. Donald Hughes Graduate Research Fellowship, the Equity Graduate Student Fellowship, and the Samuel P. Hays Fellowship.

The Rothman, Hughes, and Equity Fellowships are reserved for graduate students; the Hays Fellowship is open to all non-student practicing historians.

In addition, the ASEH co-sponsors the ASEH–Newberry Library Fellowship for scholars who will work with the Newberry's extensive holdings in Chicago.

AWARDS

ASEH will also award its annual Distinguished Scholar Award and Lisa Mighetto Distinguished Service Award, along with the Public Outreach Project Award. 

You can nominate candidates for these awards here.

ASEH 2024 Annual Conference

The Westin Denver Downtown

April 3-7, 2024

The CALL FOR PROPOSALS for ASEH 2024 is now open!

ASEH 2024 will feature research on all facets of environmental history, from any geographical or temporal context, especially related to the conference theme, Changing Climates: Environmental Histories of Extractivism and Speculation. The Program Committee welcomes traditional panels, individual papers, teaching and pedagogy sessions, innovative formats, and sessions that encourage active audience participation. Click here to view the entire Call for Proposals and to submit panels, roundtables, alternative sessions, posters, and individual papers. 

The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2023.

Looking for Co-panelists or Interested in Chairing a Session?

Check the ASEH 2024 Message Board.

ASEH announced the winners of all if its distinguished awards, prizes for scholarships, and research fellowships at last week’s annual conference in Boston. This year’s winners are:

AWARDS

Distinguished Scholar Award

Joel Tarr

 

Lisa Mighetto Distinguished Service Award

Paul S. Sutter

Distinguished Career in Public Environmental History

Jenny Price

 

PRIZES

George Perkins Marsh Prize for best book in environmental history

Winner:

Ruth Rogaski, Knowing Manchuria: Environments, the Senses, and Natural Knowledge on an Asian Borderland (University of Chicago Press)

Finalists:

Abigail Agresta, The Keys to Bread and Wine: Faith, Nature, and Infrastructure in Late Medieval Valencia (Cornell)

Andy Bruno, Tunguska: A Siberian Mystery and Its Environmental Legacy (Cambridge)

Laura Martin, Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration (Harvard)

Rachel Carson Prize for best dissertation

Scott Doebler (Penn State University), "Arboreal Apogees: Maya, English, And Spanish Ecologies In Lowland Yucatán And Guatemala, 1517-1717

Alice Hamilton Prize for best article outside of the journal Environmental History

Simone Schleper, "Caribou crossings: the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, conservation, and stakeholdership in the Anthropocene"

 

Leopold-Hidy Award to honor the best article in the journal Environmental History

Emily Brownell, “Reterritorializing the Future: Writing Environmental Histories of the Oil Crisis from Tanzania.”

 

ASEH-FHS Graduate Student Essay Prize:

Winner:

Ethan Barkalow (Georgetown University), “Empire Underwater: Seaweed and Technology on a Korean Littoral, 1907-1945" 

Environmental History Fellows: 

Camden Elliott (Harvard University), “Nursery of Empire: Trees, Time, and Native American Resistance in the Colonial Northeast, 1675-1765”

Chandra Laborde (University of California Berkeley), “Building a Country Women's Commune: Spatializing Ecological Feminism in Northern California during the 1970s”

Hayden Nelson (University of Kansas), “‘Saw-Mills and Liberty!’: Timber Resources, Property, and Removal in Territorial Kansas”

 

Most Effective Poster at ASEH 2023 Annual Conference:

Caleb Ireland, Bates College, “Let Freedom Ring from the Mighty Cypress Trees to the Amber Waterways: An Environmental History of Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp”

Dmitrijs Porsnovs, University of Stavanger, “How listening to science become a disaster: History of tire artificial reefs off the Atlantic coast”

FELLOWSHIPS

Hal Rothman Dissertation Fellowship

Anjuli Webster (Emory University), “Fluid empires: histories of environment and sovereignty in nineteenth century southern Africa”

J. Donald Hughes Graduate Research Fellowships

Andrew Craig (University of Georgia), “Obnoxious Odors, Dead Vegetation, and Irritated Lungs: Nuisance Lawsuits and Community Mobilization against Fertilizer Production in the US South 1910-1920”

Weijia (Vicky) Shen (University of Pittsburgh), “Plants, Insects, and the Making of the 20th century Asia-Pacific”

Equity Graduate Fellowship

Donal Thomas (Stony Brook University), “Knowledge Transfer from the Natural World of the Western Ghats: Indigenous Voices and the making of Imperial Metropolitan Institutions, 1770-1905”

Samuel P. Hays Research Fellowship

Diana Alejandra Méndez Rojas (Centro de Estudios del Movimiento Obrero y Socialista, Mexico City), “Mario Payeras And The Ecological Critique Of Civilization”

In the election held in February 2023, the membership elected the following candidates:

Vice President/President Elect:
Jay Turner

ASEH Council:

Faisal Husain

Melanie Kiechle

Ramya Swayamprakash

Christopher Wells

ASEH Nominating Committee:

Jennifer Bonnell

Michelle Mart

 

ASEH thanks for their service outgoing Members of the Council:

Ellen Arnold

Mike Dockry

Catherine McNeur

Marsha Weisiger

Graeme Wynn (Past President)

And outgoing members of the Nominating Committee:

Michael Egan

Ling Zhang

New members will take their positions at the conclusion of the ASEH Council Meeting on April 8.

ASEH joined many other ACLS member societies to sign the ACLS-authored Statement In Support of Academic Freedom and New College of Florida. The full text is below.

View the full text of the statement is below and all signatories.

In recent years, we have seen politicians intensify their effort to re-brand institutions of higher education – specifically, the humanities and social sciences – as hothouses of liberal indoctrination. Their attacks threaten public understanding of our nation’s history and culture, and they undermine key principles of academic freedom and faculty governance. 

The governor of Florida has now moved past rhetoric to direct action with its current “overhaul” of New College of Florida. The state administration uses the word “indoctrination” often and freely. By ousting Dr. Patricia Okker, the president of New College of Florida, and by taking over the college’s Board of Trustees, they reveal themselves as would-be indoctrinators of views that undermine the purpose of higher education in a democracy. Other states are already pursuing similar efforts of intimidation and censorship.

ACLS stands up in support of ex-President Okker, the New College community, and faculty and students at institutions of higher education around the country who are experiencing similar political interventions. We believe that higher education is based on critical thinking and informed debate. We recognize that differences of opinion are vital to academic inquiry, and we support the rights of all students and faculty to freely engage in scholarly conversation and civil debate. This is precisely what is threatened in this moment.

We ask every member of the ACLS community to inform themselves about these dangerous developments and to draw on the resources of ACLS, its member societies, and other groups that are mobilizing to protect faculty governance and advocate for the free circulation of humanistic knowledge.  

We thank those of you already joining the fight in your societies and on your campuses. ACLS invites our community of member societies, member institutions, fellows and grantees, and supporters to sign this statement to affirm their support for sustaining academic freedom in higher education.

Apply for ASEH Prizes, Awards, and Fellowships

ASEH is now accepting applications for research fellowships, and submissions and nominations for prizes and awards. Click on the links below for more information and instructions about how to apply and submit nominations.

All deadlines are November 20, 2022.

PRIZES

Each year, ASEH awards five prizes for outstanding scholarship in the field of environmental history. Please read the instructions for submitting your work for consideration for each prize listed below.

George Perkins Marsh Prize for best book in environmental history

Alice Hamilton Prize for best article outside journal Environmental History 

Leopold-Hidy Prize for best article in journal Environmental History (with Forest History Society)

Rachel Carson Prize for best dissertation in environmental history

ASEH-FHS Graduate Student Essay Prize 

FELLOWSHIPS

The ASEH currently offers four research fellowships: the Hal Rothman Dissertation Fellowship, the J. Donald Hughes Graduate Research Fellowship, the Equity Graduate Student Fellowship, and the Samuel P. Hays Fellowship.

The Rothman, Hughes, and Equity Fellowships are reserved for graduate students; the Hays Fellowship is open to all non-student practicing historians.

In addition, the ASEH co-sponsors the ASEH–Newberry Library Fellowship for scholars who will work with the Newberry's extensive holdings in Chicago.

AWARDS

ASEH will also award its annual Distinguished Scholar Award and Lisa Mighetto Distinguished Service Award, along with the Distinguished Career in Public Environmental History Award. 

You can nominate candidates for these awards here.

ASEH's Nominating Committee Seeks Candidates for Leadership

Do you want to help chart ASEH’s course in the coming years? Do you have ideas about how to keep ASEH a vibrant community? Do you have a perspective that you think needs to be heard? Have you admired a fellow ASEH member’s commitment to our common principles, or their efforts to advocate on behalf of others? Perhaps you’ve been astounded by how effortlessly a colleague organized a workshop or conference panel. Or possibly you’ve long admired how a fellow ASEH member instills a rich appreciation for environmental history among public audiences. If the answer to any of these questions is yes—the nominating committee of ASEH would appreciate your help in filling the following imminent vacancies in the society’s governance structure:

One candidate for Vice President/President elect

As Vice President, this person will have overall charge of arrangements for the society's annual program, for which purpose he/she shall also appoint a program committee. He/she shall also arrange joint programs with other organizations in cooperation with the President and members of the Council. He/she shall act for the President in all other matters when the President is absent or unable to act. As President, he/she will preside at all business meetings of the society and shall appoint members of all committees except where otherwise provided for in the bylaws.

Four Council Members (8 candidates needed)

Elected members of the Council shall participate equally and jointly with elected officers in making collective decisions concerning the society where provided for in the bylaws or where otherwise necessary and proper.

Two Nominating Committee Members (4 candidates needed)

These members are charged with identifying candidates to stand for elections, which take place in the January of odd years.

To make a nomination, you can use the online Nomination Form or feel free to contact any of the four current nominating committee members via e-mail: Michael Egan (megan@mcmaster.ca), Dan Macfarlane (daniel.macfarlane@wmich.edu), Emily Pawley (pawleye@dickinson.edu), or Ling Zhang (ling.zhang.2@bc.edu).

Nominations will be gratefully received until October 7, 2022. 

The election will take place in January 2023.