Watermark is a feature documentary from multiple-award winning filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal and renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky. 

The film brings together diverse stories from around the globe about our relationship with water: how we are drawn to it, what we learn from it, how we use it and the consequences of that use. We see massive floating abalone farms off China’s Fujian coast and the construction site of the biggest arch dam in the world – the Xiluodu, six times the size of the Hoover. We visit the barren desert delta where the mighty Colorado River and the water-intensive leather tanneries of Dhaka.We witness how humans are drawn to water, from the U.S. Open of Surfing to the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, where millions of people gather for a sacred bath in the Ganges. We speak with scientists who drill ice cores deep into the Greenland Ice Sheet, and explore the sublime pristine watersheds of Northern British Columbia. Shot in stunning 5K ultra high-definition video and full of soaring aerial perspectives, this film shows water as a terraforming element, as well as the magnitude of our need and use.
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Our very own Prof. Degroot will be taking part in an interdisciplinary panel about strategies for writing persuasively and accurately about environmental disaster and climate change, in Copley Formal Lounge (in Copley Hall, accessible on the south side of Red Square).

It's a task than many of us have to cope with, so come and join the discussion! 

This Saturday, April 23, the Georgetown University History Department is proud to host the annual spring workshop of the African History Series of the Georgetown Institute for Global History, on the subject of African Environments and their Populations. The all-day workshop features Nancy Jacobs (Brown University), Sandra Swart (Stellenbosch University) and guest panelists.

Workshop Description: Humanistic approaches to the study of environments over the last several decades opened intellectual space for new fields of humanities and social science research on topics like climate change. Indeed, the anthropocentric approach dominates both environmental and climate studies in disciplines ranging from history to anthropology to critical theory. Consensus is growing around the value of concepts like the Anthropocene and the place of the humanities and social sciences in contributing to the research agenda undergirding policy about the environment and the changing climate. But, these developments have generally unfolded in isolation from other developments in the humanities and related fields that take seriously the study of non-human populations of environments, often in changing climate regimes. Scholars in a number of humanistic disciplines have recognized the need to study animals, pathogens, and even trees through humanities approaches. New thematic fields of research (and journals) are emerging for these approaches, of which the best known is Animal Studies. We seek to put into conversation traditionally anthropocentric approaches to the study of African environments—including under new and historical climate regimes—with emerging humanities approaches to the many other kinds of non-human populations that also live in African environments. We hope some of these connections will emerge in individual papers, while others will develop as we draw out links between papers during the workshop.

Please RSVP here. Contact Prof. Kathryn de Luna to receive copies of the pre-circulated papers.

Read on for the schedule of the day's events ->

Several Georgetown University scholars will participate in the annual conference of the American Society for Environmental History, taking place this week at the Westin Hotel in Seattle, Washington. See below for details on the relevant panels, roundtables and events.

Thursday March 31: 

Professor Dagomar Degroot chairs the informal Climate History Network lunch at 11:30 a.m. at Icon Grill.

Doctoral candidate Adrienne Kates presents 'Capitalism and Maya Autonomy in Mexico's Forest Frontier, 1902-1945', on the panel 'Landscapes and Peoples in the Yucatán, 1500-Present' from 1 to 2:30 p.m., in the Adams room. 

Dr. Andrea Williams (PhD 2013) presents 'French Foresters Abroad: French Empire and the Nineteenth-Century Evolution of Forest Science', on the panel 'Trees Crossing Borders - Towards a Transnational History of Forestry' from 3 to 4:30 p.m., in the Olympic room.

When: Thursday, February 25, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Where: ICC 662

What:

​The Environmental History working group is pleased to announce the details of our Winter student paper workshop.
 
Meredith Denning presents Useful Failures: Institutional Capacity Building and ‘Fishing Up’ the lower Great Lakes, 1906-1954, a working chapter of her dissertation on international environmental cooperation in the Great Lakes region of North America. This chapter analyzes how Canada and the United States tried to cope with the decline of the commercial fisheries on the Great Lakes. The chapter covers formal sorts of international cooperation like treaties as well as informal ones like professional networking, joint research and ad hoc lobbying. The chapter highlights the catalytic effect of abrupt changes in the Lakes’ environment and the importance of local people’s perceptions of those changes.
 
Meredith will also provide a brief introduction to her dissertation project and a detailed outline of another chapter that deals with attempts to address water quality problems along the international boundary.
 
 
Graham Cornwell presents Harvesting Wheat, Drinking Tea: Consumption and the Environment in Colonial Morocco, a conference paper that looks at how the Moroccan taste for imported gunpowder, green tea and refined sugar took shape through state interventions in moments of drought and severe food shortages. The paper begins in the decades prior to colonial rule, when the makhzan (the Moroccan state under the sultan) supplied tea and sugar alongside grain in its attempts to relieve hunger across the empire. Cornwell then traces state hunger relief efforts through the 1930s, when, following a series of droughts and a burgeoning anti-colonial movement, the French launched a series of reforms aimed at stabilizing colonial control through the improvement of indigenous standards of living. 
 

​Please RSVP to Jackson Perry (jrp77@georgetown.edu) to receive copies of the papers. A light dinner will be provided.

When: April 8, 2016

Where: Georgetown University 

What:

This one-day workshop will explore African Environments and their Populations. Humanistic approaches to the study of environments over the last several decades opened intellectual space for new fields of humanities and social science research on topics like climate change. Indeed, the anthropocentric approach dominates both environmental and climate studies in disciplines ranging from history to anthropology to critical theory. Consensus is growing around the value of concepts like the Anthropocene and the place of the humanities and social sciences in contributing to the research agenda undergirding policy about the environment and the changing climate. But, these developments have generally unfolded in isolation from other developments in the humanities and related fields that take seriously the study of non-human populations of environments, often in changing climate regimes. Scholars in a number of humanistic disciplines have recognized the need to study animals, pathogens, and even trees through humanities approaches. New thematic fields of research (and journals) are emerging for these approaches, of which the best known is Animal Studies. We seek to put into conversation traditionally anthropocentric approaches to the study of African environments—including under new and historical climate regimes—with emerging humanities approaches to the many other kinds of non-human populations that also live in African environments. We hope some of these connections will emerge in individual papers, while others will develop as we draw out links between papers during the workshop. We are thrilled to feature the scholarship of confirmed speakers Nancy Jacobs and Sandra Swart as well as the participation of a cohort of Georgetown colleagues who work in environmental humanities beyond the African context. 

When: Friday, January 29, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Where: ICC 662

What:

In this instalment of the Early Modern Global History Seminar Series, we will discuss a paper from Professor Dagomar Degroot that links climate change to the course of the Dutch Wars of Independence. The discussion will be followed by a social hour. 

All students, faculty, and independent scholars are invited to attend. To receive a copy of the paper for discussion, email Sara Keck.