From the high vantage point of the “Hermann the German” statue in New Ulm, Minnesota, Ryan Hellenbrand and Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand explore the settler stories inscribed on stolen Dakota homeland, casting a thought-provoking spotlight on the intricate tapestry of history and belonging in the region.
Edge Effects invited scholars from a range of fields to share with us environmental books and texts on the topic of “Race and Place” that they are most excited to teach in the new academic year.
Writer, rancher, and farmer Bryce Andrews discusses his newest book Holding Fire, which traces his personal story of grappling with the history of guns and violence in the American West.
Aboriginal burning regimes have become popular as a solution to prevent catastrophic wildfires in Australia. Mardi Reardon-Smith argues that Aboriginal peoples’ fire knowledge is not static, as contemporary burning results from both colonial histories and the intercultural co-creation of environmental knowledges.
How do certain temperatures come to be normalized and idealized in Hawai’i? Dr. HiÊ»ilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart shares critical insights at the intersection of Indigenous dispossession and resistance.
Annie Proulx’s 2022 book Fen, Bog, and Swamp is a melancholy love letter to wetland ecosystems. But missing from this lament, Nino McQuown argues, are hopeful histories of resistance.
Traveling from the Pacific Islands to Lake Superior, six instructors share recommendations for thinking through the complex relationships between colonialism and environmental change.
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.
Caitlin Joseph argues that Indigenous water governance practices are necessary to creating a more equitable Great Lakes.
In this genre-queer meditation on mapping, Tori McCandless interrogates the colonial ramifications of the map while exploring processes of embodied and intertextual mapping that account for the interwoven histories of California’s coast. They ask: how can we know a place through touch and text?
