During the pandemic, an interdisciplinary group of scholars envisioned a new book series, Environmental Studies of the Great Lakes, in partnership with Catherine Cocks at Michigan State University Press. The idea of the series began with the observation that while the bioregion of the Great Lakes has increasing salience in cultural and regional consciousness, and while it is of course a crucial zone of multinational environmental policy, there is no publishing effort that consciously brings together scholarly work and serious writing about Great Lakes environmental issues and does so in a way that transcends the international border. Bioregions such as the U.S Southwest or Midwest, or Canadian Prairies or Atlantic Canada, are frequently employed as organizing principles for scholarly activities–such as associations, journals, book series, and conferences–and the Great Lakes basin deserves to be conceptualized in the same way. A small but growing group of historians, anthropologists, geographers, humanists, political scientists, and environmental writers have increased attention to the Lakes as a coherent place with a world-historical significance, and it seems an ideal time to begin a book series concentrating on the subject.

To serve as a launching point for this book series, we envision this conference as an opportunity to share and shape research agendas, opportunities, themes, and new interpretations about key issues in Great Lakes Environmental Studies. Overall we will think together about the complexity of the Lakes as a place: what are important trajectories that make the Lakes and their region distinctive and define their identity, history, and futures? Building on conversations taking place in activism, art, law, and other domains, we consider the ways scholarship has and has not envisioned the Great Lakes as an object and a distinctive place. Key themes around which our conversations may cohere include–but of course are not limited to–Indigenous presence and Indigenous place-making; colonization and settler place-making; transnational and borderlands culture, law and policy; climate futures; extraction and pollution; conservation, preservation, and activism; and environmental justice. 

For more information, contact Bob Morrissey.

We will meet from June 22-23 in Champaign, IL, at the University of Illinois in Levis Faculty Center, Room 213 (Center for Advanced Studies).