About the Journal
Springs: The Rachel Carson Center Review is an open-access online publication for peer-reviewed articles, creative nonfiction, and artistic contributions that showcase the work of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC) and its community across the world. In the spirit of Rachel Carson, it publishes sharp writing with an impact. Surveying the interrelationship between environmental and social changes from a wealth of disciplines and perspectives, it is a place to share rigorous research, test out fresh ideas, question old ones, and to advance public and scholarly debates in the environmental humanities and beyond.
Published biannually, Springs features a range of content, from text and photography to audio and video. It also brings together writing from other Rachel Carson Center publications. The Springs archive curates articles that were originally published in the open-access online and print journal RCC Perspectives (2010–2020), in the Rachel Carson Center blog Seeing the Woods (2012–2021), and in the peer-reviewed online journal Arcadia: Explorations in Environmental History.
Springs launched in 2022 as part of a Kolleg-Project funded by the Federal Ministry of Research and Education (Käte Hamburger Kolleg). The project is run by the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC).
How do I contribute to Springs?
Currently, submissions to Springs are by invitation only. For open calls check the RCC's other publishing platform Arcadia. Anyone may submit to Arcadia; please visit this page to read the guidelines.
Unless otherwise stated, Springs articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
With any questions, please email the editorial team at editors@rcc.lmu.de.
Springs: The Rachel Carson Center Review – ISSN 2751-9317
Current Issue
The fourth issue of Springs leads us across four continents, from the streets of downtown Los Angeles to the Ecuadorian Amazon, into the woodlands of southwest Nigeria, and along Ukraine’s Dnipro river. Frank Zelko yanks the root causes of tooth loss in industrial societies from the long history of dental ecology. Jens Kersten implores the democratic states of the Global North to transform their constitutional orders and embrace their responsibility for planetary health. As we digest the marvelous images of Amelia Fiske and Jonas Fischer’s “Crude Encounters,” we are asked to consider the ecological and psychological impacts of oil extraction. Brady Fauth sits down with Francesca Mezzenzana to discuss her research into children’s human–nonhuman relationships. Joseph Adedeji encourages us to experience the power of built heritage as a symbol of hope for a harmonious coexistence of society and the nonhuman world. Irus Braverman’s “Mother Drone, Mother Nature” holds under the microscope the ongoing convergences in technological innovation, nature conservation, and the Israeli military. Jenny Price pulls us through the looking glass, into the unique world of mockstitutions. The Dnipro river, a major focus of Soviet industrialization, is the subject of Paul Josephson’s “Rivers as Battlefields.” Serenella Iovino writes about Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees and uncovers the author’s unique political ecology.
