“William Cronon is the foremost environmental historian of our time,” President John Kroger said last Wednesday evening. “He put the field on the map.” Kroger had nothing but high praise for Bill Cronon when he introduced the guest lecturer in Vollum Lecture Hall. Cronon came to Reed to give back-to-back lectures through the Greenberg Distinguished Scholar program. Cronon came to us from University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies. He is also the author of several well-known books and rather controversial articles.
The first lecture that Cronon gave was titled “The Riddle of Sustainability: A Surprisingly Short History of the Future.” In the lecture, Cronon sought to trace the philology of the word sustainability back to its origin, in an effort to explain why that particular word has exploded in usage over the past couple decades. By doing so, he said, “I want to critique our notion of sustainability… but not say that we shouldn’t do it.” Cronon offered up several interesting facts about the origins of sustainability in his lecture, but he really stressed how new the ecological context of the word is; sustainability was not connected to ecology until the 1970s.
Cronon’s second lecture, “Landscapes of Frontier Change: Narratives of Change in the Art of the American West” was vastly different in aim and style from the first lecture. In this lecture, Cronon warned, “I’m taking on the role of an art historian, something a bit different that environmental historian.” At one point in the lecture, Cronon made a connection between a 19th century painter’s work of the American landscape and a series the same painter did on the rise and fall of Greece and Rome. Cronon made the point that these landscape paintings are not just something nice to look at, but they also tell a very important story through their use of space and symbolism, in this case warning their viewers about the eventual downfall of growing empires.
Bill Cronon is one of the most well-known minds in the field of environmental history, and his insight and wit were on full display during his lectures. What’s more, he was genuinely excited to engage in the community we have here at Reed. Even though he works at the large research university of University of Wisconsin-Madison, he said, “my sensibilities have always been in the liberal arts. I am keenly interested in how the different disciplines dialogue with each other.”