2021 Year in Review
For our final post of 2021, Edge Effects editors look back on a memorable year of essays, poems, and podcast conversations about the environment that inspired us and offered hope during another year of pandemic life.
Women Farmers Are Reshaping the Field in South Carolina
Through fieldwork interviews, Sarah Melotte learns how women in agriculture carve out room for themselves in an industry dominated by men.
The Collective Work of Urban Conservation
Drawing on examples of urban wildlife refuges in California and Alaska, environmental attorney Nicholas Moore makes the case for not only protecting these places but creating more of them.
Paul Bunyan and Settler Nostalgia in the Northwoods
Kasey Keeler and Ryan Hellenbrand think beyond tourism to show how logging and forestry have impacted a tribal nation in Minnesota—and how storytelling and placemaking can be tools of both colonialism and Indigenous resistance.
This Year, Wisconsin Apple Growers Are Feeling the Squeeze
Apple growers had a historically low harvest this year. Jules Reynolds asks: what does climate change mean for the future of Wisconsin’s orchards?
American Apocalyptic: A Conversation with Jessica Hurley
Beyond “doom bros” and end-of-history narratives, Jessica Hurley’s new book looks to the stories Black, queer, Indigenous, and Asian American writers tell about nuclear infrastructures and the radical politics of futurelessness.
Visualizing the Volcanic Caribbean
Weaving a reflective essay with a virtual gallery, artist Kwynn Johnson draws upon the rich history of volcano-inspired art to creatively reimagine the twenty-first-century Caribbean landscape.
The Hidden Histories of Mud Crabs and Oil Monsters in Singapore: A Panel Discussion
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Neo Xiaoyun, and Yogesh Tulsi discuss their contributions to the anthology Eating Chilli Crab in the Anthropocene: Environmental Perspectives on Life in Singapore.
Green Gentrification in South Philly
“South Philly had Black history but no Black people.” Sterling Johnson, with Kimberley Thomas, follows a century of green gentrification along the Schuylkill River.
Diving into the Aquatic Depths of East Asian Ecohorror
In ecohorror movies like Shin Godzilla and The Host, pollution fights back in the form of rampaging sea monsters. Lindsay S. R. Jolivette traces the significance of water in these films—and what it reveals about our worst nightmares.