Sixth Annual Meeting of the Northeast and Atlantic Region Environmental History Forum (NEAREH, formerly known as NACEHF), May 19 – 20, 2017, University of Connecticut, Avery Point Campus, Groton, CT/USA
Following a half a decade of research in the environmental histories of Northeast US and Atlantic Canada, the 2017 NEAREH Forum solicits papers exploring the ties linking people and places throughout eastern North America and the northwest Atlantic. People have long moved, lived, worked, and travelled throughout this region, drawing its communities and resources into larger networks—both before and after colonization. Focusing upon the environmental histories of such connections, this workshop seeks to bring to light how such linkages defined, evolved, adapted, and fell apart as people scribed lines across the region’s lands and seas. In addition, the Forum invites explorations into definitions and redefinitions: how have we, and how should we define this (or these) regions? What new interpretations emerge when we compare conventional understandings with those emanating from environmental perspectives? How can the region’s past—and constructions of the past—inform collective responses to future challenges?
NEAREH 2017 invites proposals from scholars exploring these—and related— questions from a wide range of disciplines that fall under the wide lens of environmental history—including (but not exclusively) Native American/First Nations studies; gender, race, class, and sexuality studies; history of science; historical terrestrial/marine ecology; and labor perspectives.
The workshop will meet at the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point Campus in Groton, Connecticut. Across town, the village of Mystic offers a range of accommodation options. Low cost housing for those interested is also possible. Mystic is also regionally known for farm/fishery-to-table dining (more details to come), as well as hosting Mystic Seaport Museum and the Mashantucket-Pequot Museum. Excursions to both will be organized if attendees express interest.
Five hundred word paper proposals should be submitted to Matthew McKenzie by 1 February 2017. Full papers, 25 pages maximum (strictly enforced), will be due by 15 April for pre-circulation.