Modern Orogenesis: Mountains and the Human Imagination

Session Submission Type: Complete Panel

Abstract

In the mid-nineteenth century, two Swiss geologists, Amanz Gressly and Jules Thurmann, coined the term ‘‘orogenesis’’ to describe the process of mountain creation. Since then, geologists have identified numerous periods of mountain formation, including the relatively recent Alpine orogeny, which produced the Alps, the Hindu Kush Himalaya, and the Rocky Mountains, all of which are still growing. A renewed focus on mountains and other high-altitude regions by environmental historians suggests another period of orogeny is underway, though this one is social, cultural, economic, and political. Mountains have a geological history, created through crustal dynamics and other geological forces, but they also have a human history, fashioned through our imagination and transformed by our varied uses of the land. This panel brings together four presenters who view mountains as landscapes created by humans – through exploration, exploitation, mapping, tourism, and park formation – covering the Alps, the Himalayas, the Rocky Mountains, and the Andes. The papers transform these high-altitude vistas into sites of kinship, collaboration, and recreation, but also into contested spaces of extraction, environmental devastation, and imperial speculation.

Sub Unit

• ASEH Annual Conference

Individual Presentations

• Joseph Dalton Hooker in the Himalayas: Evolution, Empire, and Environmental Transformation - Michael S Reidy, Montana State University

• Kinship and Conflict: The Schlagintweit Brothers’ Explorations in the Alps, Himalaya, and Sierra Nevada - Caroline Schaumann, Emory University

• Mountain Playgrounds: Recreation Tourism and Mountains in the American West - Michael Childers, Colorado State University

• Torres del Paine National Park: National Landscapes and Economic Power in the Chilean Andes - Emily Wakild, Boise State University

Chair

• Joseph Esparza, Montana State University