Trends in Research and Teaching of Historical Ecology in Central Europe October 25, 2007

A public workshop organized by the Department of Medieval Studies in cooperation with the Austrian Science and Research Liaison Office, Brno, Czech Republic.

Historical ecology is among the youngest and most dynamically developing research disciplines. It is strongly interdisciplinary, connecting humanities (history, archaeology) with natural sciences (botany, ecology). With a growing concern about the state of the global environment, historical ecological research is needed to answer crucial questions as to how present environments have been influenced by past interactions between human activities and natural processes.

Historical ecology, however, being a young discipline, is institutionally somewhat under-developed. There are very few departments or research institutions dedicated to this research area. National meetings are rare, and the meeting of European colleagues is possible almost only at the biannual conferences of the European Society for Environmental History.

The conference proposed will bring together Czech, Austrian and Hungarian historical ecologists to discuss their current projects and also to establish whether there are any common grounds, similar trends and specific local characteristics to be observed in Central Europe. Our aims also include discussing university curricula to foster a unified, quality approach in teaching historical ecology in our region. Such a meeting would provide the missing link between large congresses (such as the ESEH) and the isolated efforts of individual researchers or smaller national groups.

Friday, 26 Oct. 2007

Session I – Teaching

• The challenges of teaching environmental history


• Virtual spaces for collaboration in teaching historical ecology


• Teaching the archaeology of landscape: A holistic approach

Session II – Landscape History and Landscape Archaeology

• The memory of past landscapes: Historical and archaeological approaches


• The issue of researches on modern landscape in vedute of battlefields of the Thirty Years’ War in the area of the Czech Republic


• Landscape and/or environment in rural settlements

Session III – Historical Ecology and Modern Ecology

• Alkali vegetation in Hungary before the river regulations


• Vegetation and soil ecology of ancient and recent calcareous grasslands on the Francoscian and Swabian Alb


• Past use and present shape of the lowland forests of the Czech Republic

Saturday, 27 Oct. 2007

Session IV – Palaeoecology and Historical Ecology

• Environmental history of the peatbog at Nagybárkány (Hungary)


• Early Holocene human impact on vegetation in the Czech Republic


• The history of Hungarian woodland: Where do we stand

Session V – Climate History

• Climate reconstruction of the Czech lands since 1500: Data, methods, contemporary results


• Climatic and environmental changes in Hungary during the modern epoch


• Environmental, landscape and climate history networks and education at the Dept. of Physical Geography, Szeged University

Session VI – Environmental History

• Historical Sustainability Research: Past processes and present challenges


• Towards an environmental history of the Danube: Long-term socio-ecological research of an European Watershed


• Beauty of nature: The end of connecting beauty with proportionality and usefulness in modern era aesthetics

Conference information provided by konferenciakalauz.hu

Official Website: http://medstud.ceu.hu/index?id=10&cikk=328