River Talk Recent Posts

Last week, in response to a Twitter post by writer and editor Sarah Boon, I posted a query about possibly compiling a list of books on water authored by women.  Boon’s list was about women writing on the West, so the segue seemed

It’s been written here before: the University of Minnesota has a responsibility to its place, in the homeland of Dakota people, within the boundaries of a National Park, and on the banks of one of the world’s great rivers.  This week, the Mississippi River Gorge, including that stretch of the

Our program’s web site home page offers that the University of Minnesota “is a model for developing future-oriented, resilient relationships between communities and water.”  That statement begs the question, though: What exactly is, or might be, a “resilient” relationship between water and

Both the topic of water and the medium of stories are having a “moment” right now.  The water conversations across professional sectors are rich, and becoming more inclusive.  The use of the term “story” as a means of organizing and sharing knowledge is likewise growing, both in campus

It’s one thing to say that our landscapes are made up of layers of past activities and value structures, but quite another thing to explore, in detail, how those layers have been put down, what has been “erased” by successive layers, what elements endure, and, perhaps most challengingly,

As the official "Black History Month" comes to a close, we are mindful that environmental history is Black history, and, more specifically, that the histories of our waters are deeply intertwined with the histories of Black communities.  This