History and Environment of the Atlantic Region (HEAR)

Call for Papers on
Environmental History in Atlantic Canada,
A thematic volume with Acadiensis Press

Editors
Claire Campbell, Dalhousie University
Robert Summerby-Murray, Mount Allison University

We have received approval from Acadiensis Press to issue a call for contributions and prepare a thematic collection of papers that demonstrates the relevance of environmental history to Atlantic Canada in the twenty-first century. Environmental history is uniquely positioned to engage current public debate on such pressing issues as climate change, environmental consequences of resource extraction, and the social and cultural results of changing environments in our region. With such environmental issues at the forefront of public discussion, it seems timely to examine the contributions that an historical perspective can bring to informing policy and practices of sustainability within Atlantic Canada. It is increasingly apparent that any present or future response to environmental conditions and environmental change requires a better understanding of the consequences of past practices.

We are seeking contributions that demonstrate a regionally and theoretically informed environmental history of Atlantic Canada. We plan to feature essays that showcase innovative research in history, geography, the biological sciences, archaeology, and cultural studies; that address a range of topics, from industrial to mythic landscapes, from across the region; and that are oriented toward public engagement and policy application. This collection will appeal to an unusually diverse group of contributors and readers, with a particular appeal for classroom use in the tradition of earlier edited collections from Acadiensis Press. The volume will receive intellectual and financial support for publication from NiCHE (the SSHRC-funded Network in Canadian History and Environment) and the regional group of HEAR (Historians of the Environment of the Atlantic Region).

We are seeking contributors for the essays that will constitute the majority of this volume, to address the environmental history of the Atlantic region around the three themes of: (i) Ecologies, Sustainability and Change; (ii) Human Responses and Adjustments; and (iii) Culture, Memory and Representation. Contributions that address traditional strengths of environmental history in the region (impacts of extractive industries and their associated political economy) are welcomed as well as more wide-ranging contributions that interpret environmental history through the lenses of gender, labour, culture, representation and memory. Contributions should be approximately 7500 words in length (with a maximum of 10,000 words including footnotes and references).

If you are interested in contributing to this volume, please contact the co-editors directly (at Claire.Campbell@dal.ca and/or rsummerb@mta.ca). Statements of interest (including a brief abstract) are to be received by 15 December 2009. First drafts of papers should be submitted by 1 July 2010. Editorial and peer review of papers will follow with a planned publication date of 2011.