Hans M. Carlson, Ph.D. P.O. Box 166, Brandon VT 05733 (802) 989-1441 hans_carlson@umit.maine.edu Education Ph.D., University of Maine, 2005 Native Cultures and Environment in North America; US/Canadian History and Relations: Home Is The Hunter: Subsistence, Reciprocity, and the Negotiation of Environment Among the James Bay Cree. Departments of History and Canadian Studies. M.A., University of Vermont, 2000 Environmental History and Native American History: A Watershed of Words: Litigating and Negotiating Nature in Eastern James Bay, 1971-1975. B.A., University of Vermont, 1994. Professional Employment 2010-2011, Independent Research, funded by the Canadian Embassy to work with James Bay Cree. 2009-2010, Lecturer, Center for the Study of Canada at SUNY Plattsburgh; Independent Research. 2008-2009, Assistant Professor, Department of American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota. 2008, Spring, Visiting Professor of Québec Studies, Canadian Studies Program, Mansfield University. 2006-2007, Lecturer, Departments of Canadian Studies/ History, SUNY Plattsburgh. 2005-2006, Instructor, Department of History, University of Maine. 2004-2006, Researcher, Historical Atlas of Maine, University of Maine. 2004-2005, Associate Editor, Maine History, University of Maine/Maine State Historical Association. Fellowships 2003-2004, John J. Nolde Lectureship, University of Maine, ABD fellowship in U.S. History. 2002-2003, Fulbright Fellowship, U.S. State Department, Residence at the University of Ottawa. 2002, Canadian Embassy Fellowship, dissertation research in National Archives of Canada. 2001-2002, Alice R. Stewart Memorial Fellowship, University of Maine. 2000-2001, New England/Atlantic Provinces/Quebec Fellowship, University of Maine. Grants 2009-2010, Canadian Embassy, Research Grant. 2008, International Council for Canadian Studies, Publishing Grant. 2008, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Publishing Grant. 2001, UMaine Computing Development Grant, for online student journal. Online at: http://www.umaine.edu/khronikos/ Research Themes Political ecology and environmental history of North America in relation to Indigenous cultures. Political and cultural ecologies of New England, the past and present use and abuse of natural resources and our current relationships with global resources, particularly northern Canada. Ecological and cultural impacts on First Nations Peoples specifically the James Bay Cree resulting from resource development and political expansion in northern Canada. Canadian First Nations issues of land and sovereignty in the context of global economics and global Indigenous movements.
Publications Home is the Hunter: The James Bay Cree and Their Land. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, September 2008. Short-listed for the Harold Adams Innis Prize. Forward and Introduction online at: http://goo.gl/aajr The Cree lived in relative isolation until 1970, when Northern Quebec was swept up in the political and cultural changes of the Quiet Revolution. The ensuing years have brought immense change for the Cree, who now live with the consequences of Quebec s massive development of hydroelectricity, timber, and mineral resources in the North. Home Is the Hunter presents the environmental and cultural context from which this recent story grows. Hans Carlson shows how the Cree view their lands as their home, their garden, and their memory of themselves as a people. By investigating the Cree s relationship with the land and their three hundred years of contact with outsiders, the author illuminates the process of cultural negotiation at the foundation of ongoing political and environmental debates. This book is more than a story of dam building and industrial logging in northern Quebec. It offers a way of thinking about indigenous peoples struggles for rights and environmental justice in Canada and elsewhere. A Watershed of Words: Litigating and Negotiating Nature in Eastern James Bay, 1971-1975, in Matthew Hayday and Michael Behiels, eds. Contemporary Quebec: Selected Readings and Commentaries. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011. Originally published in Canadian Historical Review Volume 85, 1(March, 2004), 63-84. Online at: http://goo.gl/iamg Historical Atlas of Maine, Stephen J. Hornsby and Richard W. Judd eds. (In press, University of Maine Press). Description online at: http://goo.gl/eds5 Hans M. Carlson, 18 th Century Frontier Settlement (Plate 16); Colonial Proprietors on the Kennebec, 1730-1783 (Plate 17); Post-Revolutionary Proprietorship (Plate 19); New England s Internal Migration (Plate 27); Rivers to Roads: Moving Logs in the Northwoods (Plate 67); Reassembling Public Lands, 1900-2005 (Plate 72). Edward T. McCarron, Hans M. Carlson, Timber Trade and Irish Immigration (Plate 28). Hans M. Carlson, Richard W. Judd, Stephen J. Hornsby, Lumbering, 1790-1850 (Plate 32). Selected Book Reviews Kiumajut(Talking Back): Game Management and Inuit Rights, Peter Kulchyski and Frank James Tester, Environmental History (Forthcoming). The Culture of Hunting in Canada, Jean L. Manore and Dale G. Miner eds., Pacific Northwest Quarterly Volume 98, 3(2007), 148-149. Wildlife, Conservation, and Human Welfare: A United States and Canadian Perspective, Richard D. Taber and Neil F. Payne, The American Review of Canadian Studies, Volume 36, 1(Spring, 2006), 733-736. Between History and Tomorrow: Making and Breaking Everyday Life In Rural Newfoundland, Gerald M. Sider, American Review of Canadian Studies, Volume 34, 3(2004), 568-570. Cree Narrative, Richard Preston, Canadian Historical Review, Volume 84, 3(September 2003), 470-471. Is Big Hydro Really Green? Burlington Free Press, Sunday Environment Section, April 26, 2010, 1D, 4-5D.
Works in Progress Rethinking Ecology and History on the Modern Resource Frontier. A chapter in Stephen Bocking and Brad Martin eds. Essays on History and Environment in Canada s North. Part of University of Calgary Press s Canadian History and Environment Series. Walking Toward Moosalamoo: A Personal Political Ecology. A drafted manuscript that uses my walk, from Maine s Mount Katahdin to my home in Vermont, as the narrative framework for a discussion of politics, environment, and culture here in northern New England. It takes as its founding idea that environment should not simply be an instrumental subset of our politics, but that politics should be an aspect of our understanding of the land land in its broadest sense, as place and cultural source. This investigation has been the logical counterpart to my work with Natives in the north because so many of the issues there are driven by the cultural, economic, and political decisions we make here in the south. This book leans heavily on ideas and perspectives the intellectual tradition that I have learned from the Cree and other Native peoples and is an attempt to use them in dialog with Euro-North American intellectual traditions. The main thrust is not to use Native ideas to critique or deconstruct western ideas, but to see if dialog can lead to reconstruction of our relationship with our own lands and those of others. Eeyou Istchee: Cree Lands and Cree Culture Since James Bay. An ongoing research project funded, in part, by the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC. Political ecology is the lens through which I am looking at the cultural and political events of the last forty years in James Bay since the development of massive hydroelectric projects on their lands. This is a collaborative work, based in part on archival material, but relying also on the oral tradition of those who have lived through this era. Telling the local story is one thrust of this work; this is the primary interest to many of my Cree friends because they want a record of what has happened so that younger people can understand the present. In addition, the Cree journey over the last two generations shines light on current environmental and social justice issues faced by First Nations in Canada and Indigenous people around the world; that is the broader focus of this research. Courses Taught Related to Research Focus Indigenous Peoples in a Global Perspective: 2008-2009, University of Minnesota, 20 students American Indians in the United States: 2008-2009, University of Minnesota, 30 students Political Cultures and the Lands of North America, 2008, Mansfield University, 12 students 20 th Century First Nations Issues in Canada, 2007, SUNY Plattsburgh, 6 students Senior Seminar in New England Environmental History, 2006, University of Maine, 4 students Invited Talks Indiana University of Pennsylvania (invited talk), November 17, 2008, Eeyou Istchee (The People s Land): James Bay Cree Political Ecology and the Resource Development of Northern Quebec. Pennsylvania Canadian Studies Consortium Conference (invited talk), Keynote Address at Pennsylvania State University, April 26, 2008, The Road to Radisson: Politics and Ecology in Northern Québec. Alice Stewart Lecture Series, University of Maine (invited talk), November 10, 2004, St. Croix to Stats- Can: Politics and Mapping French History in the Canadian Maritimes. Colby College: Science, Technology and Society Lecture Series (invited talk), September 24, 2004, Hunters and Dam Builders: Flooding the Cultural Geography of Eastern James Bay
Selected Papers American Consortium of Quebec Studies Conference, November 14-16, 2008, The Road to Radisson: Politics and Ecology in Northern Quebec. American Society of Environmental Historians Conference, March 29- April 2, 2006, Panel Organized, Traplines and Handlines, Ridgelines and Storylines: Work and Words in Creating and Protecting Landscape and Seascape. Eastern Historical Geographers Association, 2005 Conference, June 21-27, 2005, Food and Fur in Eastern James Bay: Cree Hunters and Negotiating the Cultural Environment of HBC Trading Posts. Environmental Studies Association of Canada, 12 th Annual Conference, June 2-4, 2005, Negotiating the Cultural Environment in Land Management: A James Bay Example. Canadian Historical Association Conference, May 30-June 1, 2005, Olaus Johan Murie in James Bay: An Individual Negotiating the Cree Cultural Environment. American Society of Environmental Historians Conference, March 31- April 4, 2004, Negotiating the Borders of Native Environment: The Cultural Manifestations of Hydro Development. Association of Canadian Studies in the United States Conference, November 19-23, 2003, I Have Meat Thy Know Not Of: Christianity, Hunting, and the Negotiation of Cultural Environment in Nineteenth Century James Bay. Canadian Historical Association Conference, May 27-31, 2003, With Wishing You Good Trade and No Want of Provisions: Trade, Subsistence, and Cultural Environment in the 19 th Century Eastern James Bay Fur Trade. The Future of the Past: International Perspectives on the Relevance of History in the 21 st Century, March 15-17, 2002, University of Western Ontario, History, Nature, and Natives: Seeking the Critical Response in the Narrative of Cultural Space. University and Professional Involvement 2004 to 2006, Native American Studies Academic Council, University of Maine. Committee chaired by the Director of Native Studies, advices on curriculum and policy for the program. 2004 to 2006, Campus Planning Committee, UMaine. Committee, chaired by the university s Executive Vice President has oversight of historic preservation and development. 2000-2001, 2003-2004, President of History Graduate Student Association, University of Maine. 1996-1997, Graduate Advisory and Library Advisory Councils, University of Vermont. Outreach July 13-24, 2010, Cree Culture/ Land Issues Trip, Hulbert Outdoor Center, Fairlee Vermont. March 14-26, 2010, Cree Culture/ Land Issues Trip, Hulbert Outdoor Center, Fairlee Vermont. March 13-25, 2009, Cree Culture/ Land Issues Trip, Hulbert Outdoor Center, Fairlee Vermont. March 3, 2007, Not Just For Grade Five: Putting Canada in the Classroom, graduate seminar class on Canadian geography for New York State high school teachers. April 5, 2006, Maine Conference on Social Science, presented two sessions on Creating Content for Maine s Historical Atlas. June 22-27, 2005, Eastern Historical Geographers Association Conference, organized the six day field trip and conference in Newfoundland and Labrador. Oct 13-15, 2004, Annual University of Maine/University of New Brunswick Graduate Student Conference, organized and ran three-day event which brought graduate students from as far away as Los Angeles and England. June 27-July 1, 2004, Middle Level Education Institute, Workshop on teaching with maps. A Maine Association for Middle Level Education summer professional development institute at University of Maine Middle Level Educators: teachers of grades 5-8 July 6-14, 2004, Atlantic Canada Teachers Institute, Interdisciplinary Map Interpretation with the
Historical Atlas of Canada. Courses in Development Neither Resource nor Real Estate: A Political Ecology of Native Lands At present, in both Canada and the United States, Native peoples are acting to maintain or regain control over ancestral lands. These are political struggles, trying to define a kind of sovereignty or selfdetermination, but they are also ecological questions, turning on appropriate use of those lands traditional pursuits versus resource development, traditional knowledge versus scientific management, sacredness versus utility. We can say that western understandings of environments or natural resources do not correspond to the same conceptual geographies that Native people mean with the word lands, but what does that mean? What are some of those different ways of knowing land or place? These questions are practical at one level; environmental scientists and land managers are increasingly seeing the ecological link between biodiversity and the cultural diversity of Indigenous occupation and knowledge. Different ways of knowing Traditional Ecological Knowledge seem important if they can influence or reshape science and management. A more philosophical question might be, do those different conceptual geographies, different understandings of place, have political meaning beyond the realpolitik of who controls what patch of land? Are there links between biodiversity, cultural diversity, and democratic pluralism and might this influence or reshape our politics or what we mean by sovereignty? This interdisciplinary course considers pre-contact land use, as well as the historical conflicts over land use and occupation, but more importantly, through reading, discussion, and individual research, it seeks to reconsider the geographies that we all occupy today with an eye toward integrating political thinking with ecological thinking in its broadest context. The Commons: Reclaiming, Rethinking, and Revitalizing and Old Idea. The commons, like so many of our legal and political concepts comes down from Roman law. Res communes were land and resources common to all, without singular ownership, and distinguishable from res privatae what we would think of as personal belongings and res publicae the human-built world that we would call public infrastructure belonging to governments and institutions. This concept of communal access is what comes down to us through the feudal traditions of Medieval Europe and the common ownership of resources in colonial New England. These are the commons in the western tradition, but most regions of the world including this one before European colonization have or had frameworks of common rights to land and resources based on cultural, religious, and political traditions. In a variety of ways, communities of people were bound together, even created, by the commons they shared and this course will investigate a representative variety of Native American, European, and other global traditions. More recently, beginning in both England and the United States, the commons have been shrinking. In this region Boston Commons, and the many other regional town commons, are the last vestiges of the old tradition these are commons in name only now and our new framework of public lands are very different in their conceptualization and their control than the historic commons. These are government lands, owned in the name of the people, but controlled by bureaucrats and professionals, not by common local agreement. This to some degree is because of modern capitalism s demand for clear ownership of resources within the legal and political structure now including the genetic make up of significant aspects of our lands and even our bodies. It is also because the commons have come under attack as a concept. Garrett Hardin s 1968 Tragedy of the Commons article is the best known ideological statement against the commons, but there is a whole school of thought surrounding his work. This course will look at some of the ideological arguments against communal control and the mechanisms by which the commons have been reduced. The question this course will seek to address is whether, in a world where environmental sustainability, biodiversity, and conservation are becoming increasingly important, if reclamation of the commons in
thought and practice is useful exercise are the commons a valid means of creating a better relationship with the land we live on?