Shifting Gears: Rethinking Bicycling in Wisconsin
From “improved” velocipedes on skis to a Good Roads Movement, the history of bicycling is more surprising and wide-reaching than one might expect.
Category: Essays
“It’s Only Whites Who Go There”: On Safari in Uganda
A safari trip inspires wonder at both what is found in a game park and who is not.
Bizarre Beauty… in the Background: Video Game Nature in Final Fantasy XII
Can playing video games encourage gamers to think differently about their relationships to the non-human world? A close study of Final Fantasy XII shows how video games represent nature—and argues for ways they could be improved from an environmentalist standpoint.
Taste of Homes: Food and Familiarity
What are the connections between food, place, and belonging? An attempt to make New York-style cheesecake in France suggests some answers.
The Anthropocene: The Promise and Pitfalls of an Epochal Idea
Has Homo sapiens become a geological actor altering the conditions of life so forcefully that our impacts are being written into the fossil record? If so, what are the implications for how we imagine human history, ethics, power, and responsibility?
What Does Quantum Computing Mean for Conservation?
The rise in new, powerful computing techniques could transform a conservation sector that has grown increasingly reliant on sophisticated modeling and visualization software to make decisions about which places are worth protecting.
Why Edge Effects?
What’s in a name? Edge effects in the history of ecology, the geography of Wisconsin, and the interdisciplinary values of CHE.
