Miles Powell
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milespowell.bsky.social
Miles Powell
@milespowell.bsky.social
1.2K followers 340 following 4 posts
Environmental Historian. Author of Vanishing America (Harvard UP, 2016). Researching global history of human interactions with sharks.
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milespowell.bsky.social
Miles Powell @milespowell.bsky.social · May 5
Feeling very fortunate to have received a DFG Eigenestelle grant to see my shark book through publication, and complete some related projects. Grant will run for three years and be cohosted at @carsoncenter.bsky.social in Munich and German Maritime History Museum in Bremerhaven.
Reposted by Miles Powell
monicavasile.bsky.social
Great panel on the #Anthropocene in the last session of #eseh2025 ✨️

@wildpasts.bsky.social
@libbydeq.bsky.social
@adamwickberg.bsky.social

#envhist
August 22, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Migrants, Mosquitos, and Malaria: Histories of Constructing Enemy Threats
niche-canada.org/2025/08/18/m...

A #histmed #envhist post by my daughter Marion in the @nichecanada.bsky.social series Tracking the Effects: Environmental History and the Current United States Federal Administration
Migrants, Mosquitos, and Malaria: Histories of Constructing Enemy Threats
Trump’s immigration policies echo WWII-era propaganda linking disease and race, weaponizing public health fears to justify deportations and dehumanization.
niche-canada.org
August 19, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Reposted by Miles Powell
mpiwg.bsky.social
Department "Knowledge Systems and Collective Life" seeks a Collaborative Research Coordinator!

🤝 Help expand its community-based, publicly engaged research
🎤 Advise researchers on cooperative methods
📋 Coordinate cooperation agreements

🗓️ Deadline: Sep 28, 2025
🔗 bit.ly/45FXu8R

#HistSci #EnvHist
Collage of three images. The first reads: "Max Planck Institute for the history of Science. Career. We're hiring." The second image shows a researcher presenting at the March 2025 Publications Slam. The third shows a group of people at the institute's courtyard. Second image by Anna Ruhnow, MPIWG 2025. Third image by MPIWG, 2021.
August 20, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Reposted by Miles Powell
dagomardegroot.bsky.social
Delighted to see this new review of "Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean," a book that pulls "earthlings out of their complacency to recognize the precarity of their position amid ongoing cosmic dramas." Now available for pre-order! #Space #EnvHist www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/ripp...
August 26, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
eandhwhp.bsky.social
New open access ahead-of-print article! In "A Fishy Tale of the Nuclear Power Plant Never Built in Estonia," Kati Lindström and Achim Klüppelberg explore the envirotechnical history of nuclear development at Lake Võrtsjärv. Read it here: www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/... #envhist
August 7, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Reposted by Miles Powell
farsouthhistory.bsky.social
Check out @robertfrodeman.bsky.social's review of Lynda V. Mapes's "The Trees Are Speaking: Dispatches from the Salmon Forests," published in 2025 by @uwapress.bsky.social; review now available @hnetreviews.bsky.social #envhist #envhum
www.h-net.org/reviews/show...
www.h-net.org
August 7, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
nichecanada.bsky.social
Today @robinshistory.bsky.social's DIY wooden canoe project reveals deeper truths about plastic, sustainability, masculinity, and the contradictions of modern maker culture, in "Crafting the Plasticene."

niche-canada.org/2025/08/07/c...

#makerculture #canoes #plastics #envhist
Crafting the Plasticene
Robins' DIY wooden canoe project reveals deeper truths about plastic, sustainability, masculinity, and the contradictions of modern maker culture.
niche-canada.org
August 7, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
dinostalgia.bsky.social
This one's for the taxidermy curious. We are legion, yeah?

In "Coyotes, Cougars, Californians," I trace evolving display practices @nhm.org. It's a story about how one museum revises boundaries of belonging, featuring the late great P-22.
@animalhistory.bsky.social #envhist

doi.org/10.1525/ah.2...
A cougar diorama crafted in the 1930s, a remote Sierra Nevada scene. The mother cougar rests, one cub bats at her tail, the other cub watches. The tan cats are camouflaged among the rocks. A coyote diorama crafted in the 1950s, set in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. A male holds a jackrabbit in his jaws. The female attends to the pups who wrestle and nap. A new kind of diorama crafted in the 21st century. Not a wilderness scene but an urban backyard. A coyote has caught a pet cat for its next meal. The backdoor to this family home remains ominously ajar. A photo of the late cougar, P-22, at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. On a normal day, visitors would see the Hollywood Sign aglow behind him; on this day, only tributes, scrawled on a rainbow of post-it notes. Visitors, mourning his passing, transformed the wall into a collective eulogy for the "inspiring Angeleno." Photograph by Ted Soqui, February 4, 2023. Sipa USA/Alamy Live News
August 7, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
eandhwhp.bsky.social
Research by Harrison Croft on the story of Winston Churchill's dead platypus, first published as a Snapshot in Environment and History, made it to the front page of the BBC website today! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #envhist
How the mystery of Winston Churchill's dead platypus was finally solved - BBC News
The platypus was a top secret gift from Australia, found dead in his enclosure as war raged in the seas around him.
www.bbc.co.uk
August 3, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
nichecanada.bsky.social
Many don't know that Saskatchewan was a hub of alternative energy research and development in the 1970s.

Read "A Family Affair: Alternative Energy Research in 1970s Saskatchewan" by Justin Fisher

niche-canada.org/2023/11/09/a...

#energyhistory #alternativeenergy #skhistory #cdnhist #envhist
August 4, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
mariannedhe.bsky.social
My new piece in @noemamag.com explores how modern air conditioning technologies helped remake the Gulf. It's one for my environmental and urban historian colleagues — please check it out! Let me know what you think. #skystorians #envhist #envhum
The Gulf World That Air Conditioning Wrought | NOEMA
From Saudi Arabia to Qatar, rulers have used modern air conditioning to control landscapes and lives, forgoing traditional methods of keeping cool.
www.noemamag.com
August 6, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
heatherhouser.bsky.social
Environmental humanities & adjacent scholars: interested in collaborating on a panel for this @carsoncenter.bsky.social conference in July?!
#envhum #STS #envhist www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/news/news_ev...
Call for Papers: “The Past and Future of the Environmental Humanities” - Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society - LMU Munich
www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de
August 5, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Reposted by Miles Powell
hpscesee.bsky.social
Call for Proposals: 2026 Joint Meeting of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS) and History of Science Society (HSS), Scotland, 13-16 July 2026

Link to the full Call For Proposals is available here<hssonline.org/page/2...>
July 15, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
sabinaleonelli.bsky.social
Just out /2: condensing years of thinking, my philosophical examination of “Environmental Intelligence” as framing for foundations of #AI is on @harvarddataverse.bsky.social ! Officially published with commentaries in October, but sneak preview here: hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/mx9vpa0b... #philsci 🧪
Environmental Intelligence: Redefining the Philosophical Premises of AI
Forthcoming. Now Available: Just Accepted Version.
hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu
August 7, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Reposted by Miles Powell
whysharksmatter.bsky.social
In case you're wondering how scientists can say that many shark populations are threatened with extinction while some US fishermen report that they've never seen so many sharks, the answer is shifting baselines: how much things have changed depends on when you start counting.
August 5, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
whysharksmatter.bsky.social
Class info and signup: www.centerforwildlifestudies.org/courses/p/bi...
Biology and Ecology of Sharks and Their Relatives (Online & Field) — Center for Wildlife Studies
www.centerforwildlifestudies.org
August 5, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
dagomardegroot.bsky.social
In my forthcoming book, "Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean," I show that what happens in space matters on Earth—and what happens on Earth increasingly matters in space. In this interview with Harvard University Press, I reflect on the implications of that idea. #EnvHist www.hup.harvard.edu/features/the...
The Final Frontier is Closer Than You Think — Harvard University Press
How cosmic forces have shaped—and continue to shape—our world. We are creatures of the cosmos, whether we realize it or not, argues environmental historian Dagomar Degroot. His captivating new book “R...
www.hup.harvard.edu
August 1, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
whitehorsepress.bsky.social
We're very pleased indeed to see research first published in 'Environment and History' making waves on BBC News – it was the third most read article on the BBC's UK news website as of this morning! @eandhwhp.bsky.social #envhist
August 3, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
monicavasile.bsky.social
1/ Happy to share that my article “Beyond Homecoming: The Reintroduction of Seven Przewalski’s Mares in the Gobi Desert” has been published in Environmental Humanities.

It is the story of seven mares flown from Australian zoos to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert in the 1990s
doi.org/10.1215/2201... #envhist
Reintroduction of Przewalski's horses in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 1990s. Transported by aircraft, arriving in crates. Photo by ITG, Ruth Baumgartner.
August 2, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Reposted by Miles Powell
alisabokulich.bsky.social
3 Tenure-Track Assistant Professor Positions in the History of Science, Technology, Medicine, and the Environment at Texas State University 🗃️ #HPS
#histsci #histmed #envhist

networks.h-net.org/jobs/68829/t...
Texas State University - Cluster Hire: Three Tenure-Track Assistant Professor Positions in the History of Science, Technology, Medicine, and the Environment | H-Net
networks.h-net.org
July 22, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
carsoncenter.bsky.social
🥳We have just published a new virtual exhibition!🥳

"Once Upon a Dune: Coastal (Hi)Stories" is now online on the Environment and Society Portal (link below).

Go over to the Portal to explore the coastal (hi)stories yourself!

#virtualexhibition #dunes #online #openaccess #envhist #envhum #coast
Once Upon a Dune: Coastal (Hi)Stories
www.environmentandsociety.org
July 17, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
researchrestore.bsky.social
📢 Our new #rewilding #paper is now out in @peopleandnature.bsky.social

We show how #interdisciplinary critical #socialscience can help enhance social and environmental #justice in #conservation

Available FREE #openaccess here 👉 🔗
doi.org/10.1002/pan3... 🌎🧪
Five critical questions we should ask of rewilding projects—And that social science can help us answer
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
doi.org
July 19, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Reposted by Miles Powell
haushoferl.bsky.social
📢 #histstm jobs! 📢

3 assistant prof. Jobs at Texas State in:

#histsci/#histtech Europe/Empire

#histmed North America/Atlantic 1500-1800

#envhist water
July 22, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
I had a chance to talk with Max Pearson on BBC’s History Hour about #extinction & #envhist last week.
My interview starts at 10min into the program (part before that is about Lonesome George).

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...
BBC World Service - The History Hour, Ronald Reagan and Lonesome George
The President's 'Tear down this wall' speech, and the extinction of a tortoise species
www.bbc.co.uk
June 29, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Reposted by Miles Powell
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Touring the ship Peking at the Hamburg port museum with our workshop. The ship was used in the saltpeter trade with Chile. They had a pig pen onboard!
#envhist #maritimehist
A masted sailing ship Rope An open pig pen A green machine and iron chain
June 20, 2025 at 3:01 PM