Imaging Environment conference keynote by William Cronon November 8, 2006

William Cronon, Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at University of Wisconsin - Madison, will deliver the keynote address entitled, "The Culture of Landscape and the Nature of Politics." His lecture is a prelude to the Stanford Institute on the Environment and Stanford Humanities Center joint conference, "Imaging Environment: Maps, Models, and Metaphors." This conference will bring together scholars from the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences to explore the different histories and techniques of representing the environment on a global scale, and discuss the rights and responsibilities?individual and collective?that derive from this knowledge.

Cronon has been President of the American Society for Environmental History, and serves as general editor of the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Series for the University of Washington Press. His research seeks to understand the history of human interactions with the natural world: how we depend on the ecosystems around us to sustain our material lives, how we modify the landscapes in which we live and work, and how our ideas of nature shape our relationships with the world around us. Cronon's major writings include "Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America's Western Past," and "Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature."

The conference continues on Thursday, Nov. 9 and Friday, Nov. 10 and will include the following speakers: Lawrence Buell, Elinor Ostrom, Michael Pollan, Harriet Ritvo, and Candace Slater. These sessions will take place at the Humanities Center, 424 Santa Teresa Street, Stanford, CA.

All events free and open to the public.

Official Website: http://shc.stanford.edu