The Indiana Dunes, hugging the southern shore of Lake Michigan near Chicago and Gary in the Calumet Region, are a wonder of nature with an extraordinary history that dates from the glacial melts that formed Lake Michigan. Their complex and evolving ecosystems shaped over thousands of years in the ceaseless exchange of lake and land, served as hunting and fishing grounds to Native American tribes—many of whom were force marched from the region during the period of European colonial settlement—and then in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries became the center of fierce struggles between regional economic interests that prized their natural resources for the development of expanding commercial industry, and environmental stewards and activists who understood their public value as a unique natural sanctuary, a sacred land, and a shared commons of irreplaceable beauty. In 1957 Chicago reported that the region supplied more than 350 species of birds, almost 1100 species of flowering plants, and “almost as many plants as in all of Great BritainWhat makes the Calumet Region where the Indiana Dunes were formed so special—something Indiana should fully recognize and appreciate — is that it concentrates in a very small space (only a few thousand acres of wetland reserves in a region that stretches along forty miles of coastline) one of the most biodiverse habitats in all of the U.S. threading through one of its most heavily industrialized regions. It is a geographical palimpsest of historical, cultural, political, and ecological antitheses, and so offers itself as a veritable microcosm of the most pressing environmental challenges we face as a society, an ever-changing marker of our complicated history with each other, a unique and fragile habitat for one of the most diverse biological habitats in North America, a living laboratory of the natural world for public education, and an ongoing space of dialogue between plural communities with vastly different interests, values, and needs.

This Congress will be more than a conventional academic conference with panels and keynotes: For one, the agenda will involved active engagement with local communities, organizations, and activists as a regular feature throughout the long weekend. Non-academics will be included in the panels, run the surrounding events (tours, public fora), and participate in the plenary sessions. In addition, scholars will be encouraged in various ways to focus their thinking on the specific issues that ground environmental health and justice in the Great Lakes. In other words, applied research and case studies focused on the region will be encouraged in various ways. Finally, the venues and events of the meeting will bring attendees in direct contact with the Indiana Dunes in memorable ways. Instead of being just an attractive location for a conference, the region will be the subject matter of the Congress.

This means that the event will understand environment in an encompassing sense — the ways in which its geology, biology, and ecology are thoroughly intertwined and shot through with economics, culture, and politics. The environmental history of the region is one with the histories of First Nation tribes, urban industrialism, and tourism. A main purpose of this event in to bring together multi-disciplinary energies to encourage interdisciplinary dialogues. This feature that is already attracting great attention to the Congress is that it is an unavoidably, genuinely, and elaborately interdisciplinary event. The theme is so fully anchored in the unique material, historical, scientific, political, cultural facets of this specific place on earth; you have historical giants from far distant disciplinary and cultural locations all involved — Carl Sandburg, Jens Jensen, Richard Daley, Henry Cowles, Paul Douglas, Dorothy Buell, Frank Lloyd Wright; you have the active involvement of directly affected communities such as First Nations citizens, the Parks Service, and local environmental organizations; to the original core of environmental philosophy scholars and continental philosophy circles have been added the strong interest of major environmental humanities programs from five states, and major commitments for both undergraduate and graduate participation in the Indiana system; while the event itself is reflecting this diversity of interests in its construction, with an artist-in-residence, a counsel fire ring, talks by parks rangers, Native American elders, and community activists; and a geologic-botanical-limnologic-historical-cultural-architectural bus tour.

Finally, although we will have standard panels for faculty to present and discuss their ongoing environmental studies scholarship on traditional panels and round-tables, the Congress is placing great emphasis on the support, development, presentation, and mentoring of graduate student writing. We are also having preconference events for a select number of undergraduate students.  More details to follow.