The Land Remembers Native Histories
The University of Wisconsin–Madison was constructed through the erasure of Native monuments. But the land remembers. Graduate student Kendra Greendeer (Ho-Chunk) considers histories of settler erasure and contemporary efforts to commemorate Indigenous presence …
The Land Is a Teacher: A Conversation with Jeff Grignon
In his decades of work in forestry and cultural heritage for Menominee Nation, tribal member Jeff Grignon reads the lay of the land to find an ancient trail system …
No, Bats Aren’t Scary: Five Questions for Tessa Collins
This Halloween, consider the wild lives of bats today, adapting to a changing climate and facing a deadly (and spreading) fungus …
Unearthing the Complex Histories of Madison Parks
Histories of park planners like the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association offer a window into the complex pasts and exciting futures of public parks …
Outswimming Extinction in the Great Lakes
Dan Egan’s compelling narrative of recent challenges to Great Lakes ecosystems raises intriguing questions about invasion, evolution, and species survival …
Wading out the Kickapoo River Flood
After historic floods devastate Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, a team of scientists reflects on their fieldwork in the Kickappo River Valley to make sense of an entangled, multispecies world …
The Science of Seasons on an Out-of-Sync Planet
Phenology, tracking the comings and goings of species each season, provides insight into the disruptions caused by human-induced climate change …
How a $750 Down Jacket is Dividing College Campuses
When students critique outdoor fashion on campus, their views reveal gendered, ethnic, and regional stereotypes at play in the local meaning of international brands …
Citizen Management in a Contested Landscape
An ecologically diverse nature reserve in Wisconsin’s famed Driftless Area thrives today because of state, tribal, and local collaboration …
Rural People and Academic Elites Saved Higher Education Once. They Can Do It Again.
Rural resentment is nothing new. When one university reckoned with it a century ago, it convinced farmers that the university worked for them—and improved itself in the process …
Environmental Resentment on the Political Right
When is political resentment legitimate, and who gets to decide? Two recent books examine the emotional world of politics in rural Wisconsin and Louisiana …
Nature’s Metropolis Turns 25: A Conversation with William Cronon
An urban history nearly devoid of people nonetheless holds lessons for communal human life today …
