Net Werk voor de Geschiedenis van Hygiene en Milieu, 1999-2001 ...

Dr. Christoph Bernhardt (Institut
für Regionalentwicklung und
Strukturplanung); ‘Debates on
ecological problems of river construction
in a historical perspective:
The case of the correction of
the upper Rhine (1817-1876)’.
Professor John Sheail (Institute of
Terrestrial Ecology, UK); ‘UA
barrage of poisonous water, the
river Tees as both a political and
scientific laboratory for the use of
watercourses in inter-war Britain’.
Dr. Thomas Zeller (Deutsches Museum,
München); ‘The River as
Compromise: The Isar in Bavaria,
1880-1930’.
Dr. Ludy Giebels (hoogheemraadschap
van Rijnland); ‘From refreshing
to purifying the water.
The battle against water pollution
of a Dutch water board (Hoogheemraadschap
van Rijnland)
1900-1970’.
Professor William McGucken
(University of Southern Indiana);
‘Lake Erie Rehabilitated: Controlling
Cultural Eutrophication,
1960s - 1990s.’
Dr. Richard Coopey (University of
Wales, Aberystwyth); ‘Engineering,
Impenalism and Political
Economy: Water In Britain Since
1850’.
Dr. Eva Jakobsson (Royal Institute
of Technology, Stockholm); ‘The
History of Flowing Water Policy
in Sweden: from natural flow to
industrialized rivers’.
Mr. Laurent Honnoré (University
of Louvain-la-Neuve); ‘Water
Supply in 19th Century Belgium.
Evolution of municipal equipments
and characteristics of distribution
networks’.
Dr. Irene Maver (University of
Glasgow); ‘Scottish Water: Reactions
and Resistance to Municipal
Control in the Mid Nineteenth
Century’.
Professor André Guillerme
(CNAM, Paris); ‘Water In Northern
French Cities From Roman
Empire to industrial Revolution’.
Deze conferentie moet een vervolg
krijgen. De deelnemers zijn bezig
zich te organiseren als een internationale
vereniging van water historici.
Correspondent voor Nederland
is dr. Ludy Giebels
Nature
between fact and fiction
An interdisciplinary symposium on
nature in the cultural sciences 4 - 5
November 1999 Academiegebouw,
Broerstraat 5, Groningen Rudolf
Agricola Institute University of Groningen
Given that the division between
nature and culture is one of the
fundamental traits of the modern
Western world, it might look as if
nature is only marginally important
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contactblad van de
stichting net werk voor de
980-981
geschiedenis van hygiëne en milieu
redactie: myriam d a r u
webversie: jan van den n o o r t
to the cultural sciences. Nevertheless,
nature crops up time and time
again in any type of research on
human culture (in the broadest possible
sense of that word) - and not
just as the opposite or counterpart
of culture. On second thought,
this should not surprise us. In the
end, the borderline between nature
and culture is a necessarily human,
cultural, invention. It is drawn differently,
apparently arbitrarily, in
different scientific disciplines and
cultural contexts. All these borderlines
have one thing in common,
however: they make ‘nature’, in a
negative or positive sense, serve as a
yardstick, as a criterion for evaluation
and classification.
This observation has induced widespread
endorsement of the idea that
nature is itself to a large degree a
cultural construction, and in that
role a constitutive factor of the
human representation of nature,
of our diverging conceptions of
nature. For this reason, the status
of nature is a crucial focal point
for reflection in each and every of
the cultural sciences: is it (and in
which sense) fact or fiction, real
or a construction, autonomous or
human-made, a mix of both, or yet
something else The significance
of this kind of reflection is, in addition,
evident in times in which
environment, ecology and nature
feature so prominently on political
and social agendas.
The two-day symposium aims at
providing an interdisciplinary insight
into nature as a cultural (re-
)construction, and into its role in
the social and cultural sciences both
as an object of scientific inquiry and
as a guiding force. In the various
sessions, prominent representatives
of a broad range of cultural sciences
will address two areas of controversy.
One is that of the relation
between nature and other constructions:
how do conceptions of nature
emerge in the first place; the other
that of the relation between nature
as a construction and as reality:
how reliable or representative are
conceptions of nature, how do they
influence our behaviourAlongside
this symposium a course will be
organized for Ph.D.-students (aio’s/
oio’s).
PROGRAMME
Thursday 4 November, Senaatskamer
10.00-10.30 Registration, Coffee
10.30-10.40 Opening of the
conference by prof.dr. H.L.M.
Hermans, Dean of the Faculty of
Arts, University of Groningen
The literary construction of nature
10.40-11.30 Axel Goodbody
(University of Bath), ‘Ecocriticism/Possibilities
and perspectives
for an ecology-oriented literary
critique’
11.30-12.15 Bernhard Scholz (University
of Groningen), ‘Sublime
and beautiful nature in the geo-
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