Howard E. Woodin Environmental Studies Colloquium Series: What Are Rivers For? The Case for Happiness

A Howard E. Woodin Environmental Studies Colloquium Series talk by Nicolas Howe, Associate Professor and Chair of Environmental Studies Williams College.

Over the past thirty years, thousands of dams have been torn down in the United States and Europe to improve habitat for migratory fish and restore ecologically degraded rivers. Part of a rising movement to reconnect rivers to the sea, dam removal has become a prominent arena of environmental politics and a symbol of hope for many environmentalists, especially as runs of threatened fish return to “reborn” rivers. Focusing on grassroots activists in Maine, this lecture explores the cultural geography of river restoration in post-industrial New England. Along the way, it argues for more attention to the pursuit of happiness in ecological restoration.

Nicolas Howe is associate professor and chair of Environmental Studies at Williams College, where he is also affiliated with the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. A cultural geographer, he studies the role of ethics and religion in the environmental sphere. He is the author of Landscapes of the Secular: Law, Religion, and American Sacred Space (University of Chicago Press, 2016) and co-author with Philip Smith of Climate Change as Social Drama: Global Warming in the Public Sphere (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Please visit go/woodincolloquiumseries for Zoom details.