president's column: 40th anniversary campaign

ASEH announces its 4 for 40 campaign, which will build over the next four years and culminate in the Society's 40th anniversary in 2017.

The 4 for 40 goal is to increase members' donations to ensure that excellence in scholarship is rewarded; that our intellectual legacy is maintained through the next generation of scholars; that we remain connected to each other and the larger environmental community in this global, digital age; and that the Society is strengthened so it can meet the many needs of its members.

We are pleased to announce that past, present, and future presidents of ASEH have either made a commitment to donate $500/year for four years as part of the 4 for 40 campaign or have made lasting legacy gifts that go above and beyond this four-year pledge.

However, members should know that donations of any amount are welcome and appreciated. If 40 members committed to $25 a year, for example, it would cover the Rothman fellowship that helps a deserving graduate student finish an important dissertation. Think about it! Skipping one cup of coffee a month could help a student realize his or her dreams.

You also might donate one honorarium from your annual speaking engagements. Doing so may ease your tax burden, particularly for talks given in states such as California that require speakers to pay state income taxes on such honoraria.

We encourage members to consider different ways in which they might make monetary contributions.  In a 2008 survey of the members, for example, more than 50 percent of the respondents indicated that ASEH is their primary affiliation. Yet the number of members who make financial contributions to ASEH number 10 or fewer in most years, and the amount of donations rarely total more than $3,500.

ASEH President Gregg Mitman recently formed a new Fundraising and Development Committee, charging it to oversee a development strategy to secure additional revenues for the Society beyond membership fees and conference registration. ASEH and the new fundraising committee continue to work on broadening ASEH's donor base among non-profit organizations, governmental agencies, and the private sector. To enhance ASEH's profile in these efforts, it is important that we strengthen the culture of giving within our own membership.

As the Fundraising and Development Committee works to identify potential donors from the private sector, it welcomes any suggestions from members on potential donors. Please contact Kathy Brosnan, chair of this committee, at  kbrosnan@ou.edu.

Click here for more info. on donating to ASEH.

Finally, we recognize that there are many ways that ASEH members contribute to the organization and serve the profession - and we thank all the volunteers who have donated their time during the last year. We could not function without you!

Gregg Mitman, ASEH President

Kathy Brosnan, ASEH Vice President

by Kevin Brown

member news

announcements

The Umbra Institute is pleased to announce the second Perugia Food Studies Conference, to be held June 5-8, 2014, at The Umbra Institute in Perugia, Italy. The conference theme is "Of Places and Tastes: Terroir, Locality, and the Negotiation of Gastro-cultural Boundaries." Keynote speakers include Rachel Black (Boston University), Kolleen Guy (University of Texas at San Antonio), and Amy Trubek (University of Vermont). This conference seeks to explore the multifaceted connections between a place and its food, as it is represented, produced or consumed in relation to the identity of people and the spaces they inhabit. For proposal guidelines, a provisional schedule, and further details, please visit the conference's website at www.foodconference.it Deadline: January 17, 2014.

Dates: August 4-5, 2014

Location: Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA

This workshop will mark the centennial of the outbreak of the 1914-1918 cataclysm that extended industrial warfare to a global scale; it will examine the complex environmental dimensions of the war.

This workshop can make a major contribution to our understanding of warfare, including the natural world as well as human societies.It will discuss the environmental dynamics of the war across not only the regions of intensive conflict in Europe, Mesopotamia, Africa, and the Pacific, but also the wide regions that provided critical resources for combatant militaries. It will bring together researchers from many disciplines and diverse subject matter, with the goal of generating an integrated understanding of the war's impact on environments and natural resources around the world. 

Themes may include:

• The uses of nature: damage to landscapes and water resources; exploitation of critical natural resources; food and agriculture; new uses of natural products, forests as refuge
• Short-term vs. long-term consequences; post-war recovery and reconstruction
• Ways the war changed the course of industrialization, including new weapons, escalating materials and energy use, and mass consumption
• Perceptions of nature; the ways military strategy changed how we perceive nature; cultural constructions of the natural world

Proposed titles and abstracts for papers (400-600 words) and a short (2-3pp maximum) CV should be submitted by email, no later than January 1, 2013, to: conferences@carsoncenter.lmu.de.

The workshop is organized jointly by the Rachel Carson Center in Munich and Georgetown University.  Travel and local costs for participants will be covered.

If you have any further questions, contact:

John McNeill   mcneillj@georgetown.edu

Martin Schmid   martin.schmid@aau.at

Richard Tucker   rptucker@umich.edu

Mapping Nature Across the Americas

The Newberry Library will host "Mapping Nature Across the Americas," a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for College and University Faculty, from July 14-August 15, 2014. Led by James Akerman (director of the Newberry's Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography) and Kathleen Brosnan (Travis Chair of Modern American History at University of Oklahoma), the institute will examine in a Pan-American context the complicated, contradictory, and contested ways in which humans mapped and conceived their place in nature through history. Guest faculty include specialists in the history of cartography, environmental history, geography, US history, and Latin American history.  

green screen: environmental films with a San Francisco theme

by Mark Madison, US Fish and Wildlife Service

Finding appropriate films for environmental history classes can be a challenge. Eleven years ago I helped start the American Conservation Film Festival - and approximately 2,200 films later, I have some film recommendations with a connection to California, the location of our 2014 conference.

For graduate students

Workshops at 2014 Conference

ASEH's Graduate Student Caucus has organized two workshops on writing and publishing for our 2014 conference. These are free for conference attendees, but application ahead of time is required. Click here for more info.

Free Registration at 2014 Conference

Graduate students can get free registration in exchange for volunteering at the conference. Click here for more info.

Mark Your Calendars: Student Reception and Meeting in San Francisco

There will be a reception for students at ASEH's 2014 conference on Thursday, March 13, 9:00 - 10:00 p.m., Parc 55 Wyndham Hotel, Embarcadero Room.

Brief welcome from 2014 graduate student liaison  Bathsheba Demuth, and update on ASEH graduate student activities. Free book raffle, light appetizers, and cash bar.

Sponsored by The Nelson Institute Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE) and The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison