Making Tracks: Giacomo Parrinello

In the “Making Tracks” series, RCC fellows and alumni present their experiences in environmental humanities, retracing the paths that led them to the Rachel Carson Center. For more information, please click here.

An Initiation Into Environmental History
By Giacomo Parrinello

I first heard of something called “environmental history” as a new MA graduate in history. I had completed an MA thesis on the political cultures, experiences, and languages of radical left organizations in Italy from 1968 to 1977, and I was tired of endless documents on upcoming revolutions that never happened. Crazy enough to aspire to a doctorate in Italy in the late 2000s, I was looking for a new topic, possibly with a stronger anchorage on the materiality of human social life. I ended up with earthquakes—so much for the anchorage. Yet it was certainly different from what I had done up to that point, and I was…