Research Network "Russian Ecospheres": Concepts of Scale in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

“Russian Ecospheres” was established in 2022 by Clemens Günther (FU Berlin) and Philipp Kohl (LMU Munich) as a Research Network funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). In various formats and publication projects such as the forthcoming Palgrave Handbook of Russian Ecological Culture, the network gathers fourteen international researchers from the fields of literature, environmental history, and history of science. This roundtable is a continuation of the network’s third annual meeting at GWZO Leipzig in July 2024. After two events on the themes of spheres (2022) and forms (2023), the third convention is dedicated to the problem of scale in environmental humanities and ecocriticism, focusing on Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. Popularized in human geography, problems of ‘scale’ and practices of ‘scaling’ have been widely discussed in such various fields as biology, ecology, architecture, engineering, and mathematics. More recently, they have gained new relevance in debates on the Anthropocene. Through the lens of scale, the roundtable asks new questions about the relationship between humans and their environments across different scales of space and time, pursuing a large historical scope from the 18th to the 20th century. Speakers will address problems of scale discussing Lomonosov’s writings on precious metal ores (Colleen McQuillen), Lavrov’s pre-human history of thought (Philipp Kohl), the ‘ocherk’ between the 1830s and the 1850s (Erik Martin), Soviet energy-entropy debates (Mieka Erley), and ecology and economy in Soviet socialism (Andy Bruno).

Sub Unit

• History: 1900-1945

Chair

• Andy Bruno, Indiana U Bloomington

Roundtable Members

• Andy Bruno, Indiana U Bloomington

• Mieka Erley, Colgate U

• Philipp Kohl, Ludwig-Maximilians-U Munich (Germany)

• Erik Martin, European U Viadrina (Germany)

• Colleen McQuillen, U of Southern California