soil pollution

Introduction

Introduction

Overview of the exhibition “Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring: A book that changed the world” by historian Mark Stoll. This exhibition presents the global reception and impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a Book that Changed the World

This virtual exhibition presents the global reception and impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as well as the book’s legacy in popular culture, music, literature, and the arts.

This version 2, published in 2020, includes minor updates to the original 2012 virtual exhibition (view PDF here) and applies the Environment & Society Portal’s responsive layout.

Mark Stoll

About the author

Stoll, Mark
Stoll, Mark

Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas

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Mark Stoll is professor of history at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, and is working on an environmental history of capitalism. Stoll is author of two books, Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism (2015), and Protestantism, Capitalism, and Nature in America (1997), as well as chapters on the influence of religion on Rachel Carson and E. O. Wilson. He has edited “Nature and Human Societies,” a book series for ABC-Clio on world environmental history, and with Dianne Glave co-edited “To Love the Wind and the Rain”: African Americans and Environmental History (2006).

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Exhibition Overview
Introduction
The Power of a Book
The US Government Responds
Industrial and Agricultural Interests Fight Back
Personal Attacks on Rachel Carson
Silent Spring, an International Best Seller
Silent Spring on Television
Silent Spring in Popular Culture
Europe's Response
Legacy of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
Silent Spring in Literature and the Arts
About the Exhibition
Further Reading

Pollution and Waste

Pollution and Waste

In this chapter of her virtual exhibition “Human-Nature Relations in German Literature,” Sabine Wilke shows how topics of pollution and waste in German-language writing reach back to the nineteenth century, when the production of industrial waste—and pollution of the air, ground, and water—first began to occur on a massive scale. For the German-language version of this exhibition, click here.

Human-Nature Relations in German Literature: A Curated Stroll through a History of Entanglement

This virtual exhibition features, in English translation, short excerpts from German-language literary texts that address human-nature entanglements. The aim is to show how literature can contribute to understanding and problematizing the relation between humans and nonhuman nature. What aspects of human-nature relations are addressed, at what point in literary history, and how are they shaped poetically? This virtual exhibition is also available in German here.

Sabine Wilke

About the author

Wilke, Sabine
Wilke, Sabine

University of Washington, USA

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Sabine Wilke is Professor of German at the University of Washington. Her research and teaching interests include modern German literature and culture, intellectual history and theory, and cultural and visual studies. She has written books and articles on body constructions in modern German literature and culture, German unification, the history of German film and theater, contemporary German authors and filmmakers. Most recently, Wilke was involved in a larger project about German colonialism and postcoloniality and the question of comparative colonialisms, especially how Germany related differently to Africa and the South Pacific. With assistance from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Wilke is directing a transatlantic research network on the environmental humanities and is working on a new project on environmental criticism, in particular the overlapping concerns of postcolonialism and ecocriticism.

Browse the exhibition

Exhibition Overview
Introduction
Transformation of Landscapes
Mountains, Glaciers, Climate
Forests and Deforestation
Pollution and Waste
Further Reading

Introduction to the Exhibition

Introduction to the Exhibition

This virtual exhibition features, in English translation, short excerpts from German-language literary texts that address human-nature entanglements. The aim is to show how literature can contribute to understanding and problematizing the relation between humans and nonhuman nature. What aspects of human-nature relations are addressed, at what point in literary history, and how are they shaped poetically? For the German-language version of this exhibition, click here.

Human-Nature Relations in German Literature: A Curated Stroll through a History of Entanglement

This virtual exhibition features, in English translation, short excerpts from German-language literary texts that address human-nature entanglements. The aim is to show how literature can contribute to understanding and problematizing the relation between humans and nonhuman nature. What aspects of human-nature relations are addressed, at what point in literary history, and how are they shaped poetically? This virtual exhibition is also available in German here.

Sabine Wilke

About the author

Wilke, Sabine
Wilke, Sabine

University of Washington, USA

Show more
Sabine Wilke is Professor of German at the University of Washington. Her research and teaching interests include modern German literature and culture, intellectual history and theory, and cultural and visual studies. She has written books and articles on body constructions in modern German literature and culture, German unification, the history of German film and theater, contemporary German authors and filmmakers. Most recently, Wilke was involved in a larger project about German colonialism and postcoloniality and the question of comparative colonialisms, especially how Germany related differently to Africa and the South Pacific. With assistance from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Wilke is directing a transatlantic research network on the environmental humanities and is working on a new project on environmental criticism, in particular the overlapping concerns of postcolonialism and ecocriticism.

Browse the exhibition

Exhibition Overview
Introduction
Transformation of Landscapes
Mountains, Glaciers, Climate
Forests and Deforestation
Pollution and Waste
Further Reading

Umweltverschmutzung und Abfall

Umweltverschmutzung und Abfall

In this chapter of the German-language version of her virtual exhibition, “Mensch und Natur in der deutschen Literatur (Human-Nature Relations in German Literature),” Sabine Wilke shows how topics of pollution and waste in German-language writing reach back to the nineteenth century, when the production of industrial waste—and pollution of the air, ground, and water—first began to occur on a massive scale. For the English-language version of this exhibition, click here.

Mensch und Natur in der deutschen Literatur: Ein kuratierter Spaziergang durch eine Geschichte der Verwicklungen

In dieser virtuellen Ausstellung werden kurze Auszüge deutschsprachiger Literatur vorgestellt, die die Verstrickung von Mensch und Natur adressieren. Ziel der Ausstellung ist es, zu zeigen, inwiefern Literatur einen wichtigen Beitrag zum Verständnis und Problematisieren der Beziehung zwischen Mensch und nicht-menschlicher Natur leisten kann. Welche Aspekte dieser Beziehung werden angesprochen, zu welchem Zeitpunkt in der Literaturgeschichte und wie werden diese lyrisch gestaltet? Diese virtuelle Austellung ist hier in englischer Sprache zu finden.

Sabine Wilke

About the author

Wilke, Sabine
Wilke, Sabine

University of Washington, USA

Show more
Sabine Wilke is Professor of German at the University of Washington. Her research and teaching interests include modern German literature and culture, intellectual history and theory, and cultural and visual studies. She has written books and articles on body constructions in modern German literature and culture, German unification, the history of German film and theater, contemporary German authors and filmmakers. Most recently, Wilke was involved in a larger project about German colonialism and postcoloniality and the question of comparative colonialisms, especially how Germany related differently to Africa and the South Pacific. With assistance from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Wilke is directing a transatlantic research network on the environmental humanities and is working on a new project on environmental criticism, in particular the overlapping concerns of postcolonialism and ecocriticism.

Browse the exhibition

Überblick
Einführung in die Ausstellung
Landschaftsveränderungen
Berge, Gletscher und Klima
Wälder und Entwaldung
Umweltverschmutzung und Abfall
Weiterführende Literatur

Einführung in die Ausstellung

Einführung in die Ausstellung

This German-language version of Sabine Wilke’s virtual exhibition features short excerpts from German-language literary texts that address human-nature entanglements. The aim is to show how literature can contribute to understanding and problematizing the relation between humans and nonhuman nature. What aspects of human-nature relations are addressed, at what point in literary history, and how are they shaped poetically? For the English-language version of this exhibition, click here.

Mensch und Natur in der deutschen Literatur: Ein kuratierter Spaziergang durch eine Geschichte der Verwicklungen

In dieser virtuellen Ausstellung werden kurze Auszüge deutschsprachiger Literatur vorgestellt, die die Verstrickung von Mensch und Natur adressieren. Ziel der Ausstellung ist es, zu zeigen, inwiefern Literatur einen wichtigen Beitrag zum Verständnis und Problematisieren der Beziehung zwischen Mensch und nicht-menschlicher Natur leisten kann. Welche Aspekte dieser Beziehung werden angesprochen, zu welchem Zeitpunkt in der Literaturgeschichte und wie werden diese lyrisch gestaltet? Diese virtuelle Austellung ist hier in englischer Sprache zu finden.

Sabine Wilke

About the author

Wilke, Sabine
Wilke, Sabine

University of Washington, USA

Show more
Sabine Wilke is Professor of German at the University of Washington. Her research and teaching interests include modern German literature and culture, intellectual history and theory, and cultural and visual studies. She has written books and articles on body constructions in modern German literature and culture, German unification, the history of German film and theater, contemporary German authors and filmmakers. Most recently, Wilke was involved in a larger project about German colonialism and postcoloniality and the question of comparative colonialisms, especially how Germany related differently to Africa and the South Pacific. With assistance from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Wilke is directing a transatlantic research network on the environmental humanities and is working on a new project on environmental criticism, in particular the overlapping concerns of postcolonialism and ecocriticism.

Browse the exhibition

Überblick
Einführung in die Ausstellung
Landschaftsveränderungen
Berge, Gletscher und Klima
Wälder und Entwaldung
Umweltverschmutzung und Abfall
Weiterführende Literatur

Plastic China

A woman and her family live next to a recycling plant in China, in mountains of plastic waste from Asia, Europe, and the U.S.This documentary reveals the lives of those on the fringes of global capitalist realities, a far cry from the communist dream.

The Environment & Society Portal is a project of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, an institute founded in 2009 as a joint initiative of LMU Munich and the Deutsches Museum. Read more about the Portal in English and in German.