The University of Bern has a long tradition in environmental and climate studies. The Institute of History and the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research are therefore proud to host to the 12th Conference of the ESEH.

Bern will be the first conference site since the establishment of the biennial ESEH conferences that is close to the Alps or to mountainous regions in general. Drawing from its closeness to mountainous regions Bern invites for a conference on “Mountains and Plains”, a topic enabling approaches from various disciplines possible.

Possible topics to be discussed as part of the conference’s thematic focus on “Mountains and Plains”, include, but are not limited to the following:

– Transit across mountainous areas and their socio-economic impact (including culture and knowledge transfer)
– History of environmental knowledge related to mountains and plains
– Environmental histories of tourism in the Alps and other alpine areas as well as traffic connected with these activities
– Mountains/plains interactions, e.g. water metabolisms
– Resource use and management, biodiversity, and the commons in mountain environments and their associated plains
– The place of underwater and island mountains in oceanic environments and climates
– Influence of weather and climate on mountain and plain regions in the past, present, and future
– Mountains and plains as battlefields, migratory routes and barriers of war – the environmental impact of war

In addition, we warmly welcome papers/provocations/presentations on environmental history also outside the conference theme. We also invite contributions on teaching and communicating environmental history to a wider public (e.g. schools, university pedagogics, public outreach, citizen science). Furthermore, we encourage submissions from related academic disciplines and interdisciplinary fields, such as archaeology, anthropology, digital humanities, infrastructure studies and geography.

The Call for Papers (https://www.eseh2023.unibe.ch/conference/call_for_papers) is now open until 31 October 2022.

Online Submissions (https://www.conftool.com/eseh2023/).

Kind regards

Christian Rohr
Professor of Environmental and Climate History