Ecology and Empire

The 2026 Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC) summer seminar will examine the intersections of ecology and empire in the nineteenth-century United States, when environments were both sites of conquest and resistance and spaces of cultural encounter. Participants will use an environmental humanities lens to explore topics of US territorial expansion, settler colonialism, and industrial and infrastructural development in both continental and global contexts. Through close study of the American Antiquarian Society’s extensive collections of prints, drawings, photographs, maps, and other primary sources, participants will consider what visual representations of nature and materials sourced from the natural world can reveal about colonial power, persuasion, and resistance.

The seminar will expand on existing accounts of art and empire in the United States by introducing to its study vanguard environmental humanities theories and methods including concepts of animal and plant agency, nonhuman temporalities, and Indigenous epistemologies. Nineteenth-century practices of seeing, recording, and managing the natural world shaped enduring hierarchies of race, gender, and labor. To account for the politics of human-environment entanglement, the seminar will foreground transnational and Indigenous frameworks for the production and circulation of ecological knowledge. The seminar’s objects of inquiry will be broad, consisting of the visual and material culture of scientific expedition, surveying, natural history, extraction, conservation, gardens, and agriculture. Participants will also consider how historic ecological imaginaries can inform and shape contemporary understandings of nature, stewardship, and belonging.

Interdisciplinary in nature, the seminar welcomes scholars and professionals from across fields including American studies, art history, environmental history, history of science, geography, Indigenous studies, visual and material culture, and literary studies, among others. No prior experience in environmental humanities is required. In addition to time spent at AAS, participants will visit the New Bedford Whaling Museum to further expand our investigation of the entanglements between industry, ecology, and empire in nineteenth-century visual culture.

Guest speakers for the seminar will include Stacy Kamehiro (UC Santa Cruz), with others to be announced in February.

About

Participation is intended for graduate students, college and university faculty, librarians, curators, and museum professionals.

Application

The deadline for applications is April 15, 2026.

Accessibility

CHAViC is committed to creating an environment that welcomes all people and meets their access needs. The AAS library and classroom facilities are wheelchair accessible. Other accommodations may be available upon advance request. Participants are encouraged to indicate any accessibility needs in their applications.

Tuition

Tuition for the five-day seminar is $1,000 which includes meals throughout the week and a day trip to the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Housing

The cost of housing is not included in the tuition fee. Participants will have the option of staying in dormitory housing on the Worcester Polytechnic Institute campus (within easy walking distance of AAS) for approximately $80.00 per night.

Contact

For questions about the seminar, contact John J. Garcia, AAS director of scholarly programs and partnerships, at jgarcia [at] mwa.org (jgarcia[at]mwa[dot]org) or 508-471-2134.