Lynn W. Day Distinguished Lectureship in Forest and Conservation History

The Lynn W. Day Distinguished Lectureship in Forest and Conservation History is a collaborative effort between the Forest History Society and Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and its Department of History. Speakers are recognized scholars or leaders in natural resources who are shaping our understanding of human history and environmental change. In addition to offering serious scholarship, the lectureships will be accessible to a broad audience on unique and provocative topics and philosophies. The lectureship is supported by the Society's Lynn W. Day Endowment for Publications in Forest History, which was augmented with funds from a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

2024 Lecture “Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future”
by Daniel Lewis
2023 Lecture “Forest Fanatics: How Do We Align Around Today’s Forest Climate Issues?”
by Terry Baker
2022 Lecture “Conservation and Community: Beyond the Public-Private Binary in the History of Land Conservation”
by Curt Meine
2021 Lecture “Giving Character to the Landscape:’ An Environmental History of the American Chestnut”
by Donald Edward Davis
2020 Lecture “The Pyrocene: How Humanity Created a Fire Age”
by Stephen J. Pyne
2019 Lecture "The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World"
by Andrea Wulf
2018 Lecture None held
2017 Lecture "No-Man’s Land as Nature Preserve: The Strange Case of Cold War Conservation"
by Lisa Brady
2016 Lecture "Public Lands and the Fault Lines of a Democracy: Reflections on a Second Century for National Parks"
by Rolf Diamant
 2015 Lecture "The Ecology of Erasure: Soil Erosion, Landscape Conservation, and the Greening of the South"
by Paul Sutter
2014 Lecture "Before and After Rachel Carson: Women and the Environmental Movement"
by Robert K. Musil
2013 Lecture "Forest Conservation and Climate Change: Adaptation of Science, Policy, and Practices"
by David Cleaves
2012 Lecture "'If You Build It. . .' The Transcontinental Railroads and the Environmental Consequences of Premature Development"
by Richard White
2011 Lecture "Policymaking Under Conditions of Uncertainty: The Weeks Act and the Eastern National Forests"
by Robert G. Healy
2010 Lecture "Climate Change, Boreal Forests, and the Legacies of History"
by Nancy Langston
2009 Lecture "The Meaning of Wilderness and the Rights of Nature"
by Roderick F. Nash
2008 Lecture "The Next Environmentalism: After the 2008 Election"
by Robert Gottlieb
2007 Lecture "Remaking American Environmentalism: On the Banks of the L.A. River"
by Jenny Price
2006 Lecture "Will the U.S. Forest Service Celebrate a Bicentennial?:The Remarkable History of and Future Challenges Facing a Resource Agency"
by Char Miller
 2005 Lecture "The Fight for the Forefathers: Who Owns Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold?"
by Patricia Limerick
 2004 Lecture "John Muir and the Modern Passion for Nature"
by Donald Worster
 2003 Lecture "Challenges and Opportunities for the Application of Historical Studies to Conservation"
by David R. Foster
 2002 Lecture "Forests and War in World History"
by John R. McNeill
 2001 Lecture "The Source"
by Stephen Pyne
 2000 Lecture  [None held]
 1999 Lecture "Humanist Environmentalism: A Manifesto"
by William Cronon
close donate modal