12th Annual BAA Conference: Green Cultures: Environmental Knowledge, Climate, and Catastrophe

12th Annual BAA Conference: Green Cultures: Environmental Knowledge, Climate, and Catastrophe

Veranstalter
Rachel Carson Center Munich, Bavarian American Academy
Veranstaltungsort
Amerika Haus, Karolinenplatz 3, 80333 München
Ort
München
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
09.07.2010 - 10.07.2010
Von
Bayerische Amerika-Akademie

Admission free, general public welcome, registration requested

In 2004, The Day After Tomorrow, a rollercoaster drama about a super storm that devastates New York City at the start of a new ice age, was among the top-grossing movies worldwide. A year later, the suddenness of the destruction brought to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina shocked Americans as well as foreign observers and heightened the awareness of natural disasters and their devastating impact on communities. It reminded Americans that natural catastrophes such as the San Francisco Earthquake and the Dust Bowl have played a major role in the history of the American continent, and it alerted them to very current discussions on environmental threats and climate change. Moreover, issues of race, class and the environment came to the forefront and stimulated discussion in the realms of politics and culture, including the various fields of the sciences and the humanities.

The conference will focus on environmental knowledge production in the U.S. by taking as starting points the impact of natural catastrophes and of public debates on climate change and environmental threats. Papers will address the social, political, economic, ecological, and cultural effects of natural catastrophes. At stake will be issues such as disaster management and politics, disaster as spectacle, and the popular imagination of catastrophe which point to the role of language, texts, and the media in creating and limiting knowledge about environmental issues and about the political, economic, and ethical dimensions of the human-nature relationship.

In bringing together historians and geographers, literary and cultural studies scholars, political scientists, anthropologists, and scientists from the United States and Europe, the conference will demonstrate that the human experience and imagination of environment have played a truly important role in American culture.

The conference will be followed by a Panel Discussion (Podiumsdiskussion): "Was können Deutschland und die USA in Sachen Umwelt voneinander lernen?", on the last day of the event, from 11:15 to 13:00. Admission free, general public welcome, registration requested.

For detailed information on the program as well as on our international speakers please visit www.amerika-akademie.de

Registration at 089-54 50 40 30 / info@amerika-akademie.de

Supported by U.S. Consulate General Munich, B.A.Z. Amerika Haus

Programm

FRIDAY, 9 JULY

9.00 Welcome
Klaus Benesch - Director, Bavarian American Academy
Christof Mauch - Director, Rachel Carson Center
Christoph Parchmann - Head of International Affairs Unit, Bavarian
Ministry of Sciences, Research, and the Arts

9.30 Panel I – Natural Hazards and the Making of America
Chair: Heike Paul (University of Erlangen-Nuremburg)
Sherry Johnson (University of Florida ): Big Storms, Colonialism, and Crises in the Age of the Revolution
Lawrence Culver (Utah State University): Manifest Disaster: Climate and the Making of America

11.15 Coffee Break

11.45 Panel II – Ambivalent Legacies: Environmental Imperialism and Notions of Progress
Chair: Klaus Benesch (University of Munich)
Andrew Isenberg (Temple University Philadelphia ): Buffalo Commons: The Past, Present, and the Future of an Idea
Gordon Winder (University of Auckland and LMU Munich) The Other Machine in the Garden: The Reaper, the Great West, Wilderness, and the American Mind

13.15 Lunch Break

15.00 Panel III – Understanding Desaster – Explaining Politics
Chair: Barbara Hahn (University of Würzburg)
Heike Egner (University of Mainz ): Natural Disasters and Cultures of Risk. A Radical Constructivist’s Perspective on Risk
Andreas Falke (University of Erlangen-Nuremburg): Why is the U.S. a Laggard in Climate Change Policy or is it?

16.30 Coffee Break

17.00 Panel IV – Forgetting and Remembering Catastrophes
Chair: Volker Depkat (University of Regensburg)
Uwe Lübken (LMU Munich): The 1937 Ohio River Flood: A Forgotten Disaster?
Craig Colten (Louisiana State University): Forgetting the Unforgettable: Losing Social Memory and Resilience in New Orleans

18.45 BAA MEMBERS' MEETING (Members only!) – Annual Meeting of the BAA

SATURDAY, 10 JULY

9.00 Panel V – Environmental Knowledge and the Imagination: Literature and Film
Chair: Sylvia Mayer (University of Bayreuth)
Stacy Alaimo (University of Texas, Arlington): Trans-corporeal Knowledges: Science, Environment, and the Material Self
Alexa Weik (University of Fribourg): Facing The Day After Tomorrow: Filmed Disaster, Emotional Engagement, and Climate Risk Perception

10.30 Coffee Break

11.00 Greetings, U.S. Consul General Conrad Tribble BAA Dissertation Award Ceremony

11.15 Keynote lecture
Sustainable Development – The New Name For Peace?!
Free admission
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Klaus Töpfer (Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam / Former Under Secretary General United Nations)

12.00 Panel Discussion
Was können Deutschland und die USA in Sachen Umwelt voneinander lernen?
Eintritt frei
Besonders auf einzelstaatlicher Ebene entwickeln sich die USA im Moment vom Umweltsünder zum globalen Vordenker. Kalifornien, die Staaten im pazifischen Nordwesten und an der Ostküste, sowie global agierende Unternehmen „are going green“, in dem sie ihren Energieverbrauch reduzieren oder auf erneuerbare Energien umstellen.
Diskussionsteilnehmer:
Albert Göttle leitet seit 2005 als Präsident das Bayerische Landesamt für Umwelt. Er ist seit 1994 Honorarprofessor an der TU München und Vizepräsident der Deutschen Vereinigung für Wasserwirtschaft, Abwasser und Abfall e.V.
Christof Mauch ist Direktor des Rachel Carson Center for Environmental Studies, Professor für Nordamerikanische Kultur-, Sozial-, und Politikgeschichte an der LMU München und Leiter des Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies.
Karsten Smid ist Klimaexperte bei Greenpeace Deutschland.
Moderation: Jeanne Rubner hat im Jahr 2007 den Titel „Das Energiedilemma. Warum wir über Atomkraft neu nachdenken müssen“ veröffentlicht und ist Leitende Redakteurin bei der Süddeutschen Zeitung.

13.00 End of Conference

Kontakt

Bayerische Amerika-Akademie

Karolinenplatz 3, 80333 München

089- 54 50 40 30
089- 54 50 40 35
info@amerika-akademie.de

www.amerika-akademie.de
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