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iCal calendarOur next Inimkond seminar will be held by Ulrike Plath from Tallinn University and the Under and Tuglas Literature Centre, and is titled Creating unnatural landscapes? Questions on Baltic Gardening History (17th-20th centuries).
The seminar will take place on Wednesday, Oct 15, from 6 to 8pm in room T-415 (Tallinn University Terra building). You are cordially invited to attend!
See also FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/698967783531161/
Abstract:
By definition, gardens are not only human-induced ecosystems marked by soil changes, but also artificial, man-made ecosystems. In a well composed garden nearly nothing is growing as it would without the helping hand of the gardener. But at the same time a garden is not only a product of culture – it consists of highly complex natural co-evolutionary processes between the given soil, plants, animals, temperature, and light. Gardens are therefore fascinating examples of socio-natural sites, the very places environmental history has been dealing with increasingly in the last thirty years.
In the paper I will discuss how gardening as a cultural practice was introduced in the Nordic environment of the Baltic provinces since the late 17th century by importing global knowledge, techniques, plants and new animal species and by transforming the soil not only toward soil degradation but mostly toward melioration. I will also trace how the new cultural practices of gardening that were able not only to produce new ecosystems but also new semi-natural hybrids were perceived, explained and propagated in contemporary literature, and how this literature reflected on the interaction between humans and nature. How, for example, was the art of grafting perceived in the context of growing naturalized nationalism by the end of the 19th century? Towards the end of the paper I will ask a series of questions on Baltic gardening history, reflecting the changing understandings of the importance of natural and unnatural ecosystems. I will also try to answer the question why the spread of gardening among Estonians took such a long time, and why the process of cultural transfer has been so slow on the one hand, yet so long-lasting on the other.
Biography:
Ulrike Plath is a historian and literature scientist working on Baltic cultural and environmental history of mostly the 17th-19th centuries. She is working as a professor for German history and culture in the Baltic Region at Tallinn University and as a senior researcher at the Under and Tuglas Literature Centre of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. In her recent work she has been working on Baltic food and gardening history, linking environmental history with approaches from body history and historical anthropology. Ulrike heads the Estonian Centre for Environmental History (KAJAK, http://www.tlu.ee/et/ajaloo-instituut/KAJAK) and is a member of Tallinn Environmental Humanities (TEH, http://teh.tlu.ee/).
Inimkond: Current Issues in Anthropology and Beyond
full program at http://www.tlu.ee/en/estonian-institute-of-humanities/Anthropology/inimkond
This seminar series features speakers from anthropology and related fields, and fosters discussion of their research with a transdisciplinary audience. It aims to contribute to the culture of academic scholarship and debate at Tallinn University. Speakers include both local researchers and guests from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and with various takes on anthropological theory and methods. Presentations in the seminar series will be of interest to staff and students in anthropology, cultural theory, sociology, and history, among others.