Professor Libby Robin
Areas of expertise
- Curatorial And Related Studies 2102
- Historical Studies 2103
- Other Environmental Sciences 0599
- History And Philosophy Of Specific Fields 2202
- Environmental Science And Management 0502
Research interests
Emeritus Professor Libby Robin FAHA is an historian of science and environmental ideas. She is Emeritus Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University, independent writer and Curator-at-Large.
Career highlights include Guest Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm in the Division of History of Science and Technology (2011-2014; affiliated professor 2015-2017) and Senior Fellow in the National Museum of Australia's Reseach Centre (2007-2015).
Libby has published widely in the history of science, international and comparative environmental history, museum studies and the ecological humanities. She has won national and international prizes in History (How a Continent Created a Nation), in Zoology (Boom and Bust), and in literature (Flight of the Emu, The Future of Nature).
She was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities in 2013.
In her new work, she writes about museums and global change. For example: iceho.org/artforclimate
General themes: Environmental humanities, Conservation history and policy; Interdisciplinary environmental studies; The scientific aesthetic; Climate Change and the humanities; History of Ornithology in Australia; History of Science in Australia and the region
New Books:
2018 Warde, Paul, Libby Robin and Sverker Sörlin The Environment: A History of the Idea Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore USA https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/environment
2017 Lukasiewicz, Anna, Stephen Dovers, Libby Robin, Jennifer McKay, Steven Schilizzi and Sonia Graham (eds.) Natural Resources and Environmental Justice: Australian Perspectives, Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing. 284pp.
2017 Newell, Jennifer, Libby Robin and Kirsten Wehner eds. Curating the Future: Museums, Communities and Climate Change (Routledge Environmental Humanities), Abingdon, UK, Routledge, 2017. 298pp.
Projects:
Environmental Humanities
Co-convenor of Australian Environmental Humanities Hub www.aehhub.org
Key paper: Robin, Libby ‘Environmental humanities and climate change: Understanding humans geologically and other life forms ethically’, WIREs Climate Change 2017 e499, doi: 10.1002/wcc.499
Expertise for the Future
Histories of environmental prediction and policy (2011-2018) Libby Robin (ANU), Sverker Sörlin (Royal Institute of Technology KTH, Stockholm) and Paul Warde (Cambridge) (project leaders) Outcomes include The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change (2013, Yale UP) (Winner Best Anthology at New England Book Fair, USA) Website: http://www.histecon.magd.cam.ac.uk/ees/expertise_future.html
Related website: https://expertspastpresentfuture.net/the-environment-and-its-evolution-as-an-integrative-tool-e0caea898b99
Also contribution to Past Futures: Experts Development and Sustainability (eds Rivera, Sum and Trentmann; Oekom)
Relevant online publication: Robin, Libby “Comments” in H-Environment Roundtable Reviews: Perrin Selcer, The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment: How the United Nations Built Spaceship Earth (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018) Editor: Keith Makoto Woodhouse ISBN: 9780231166485 Volume 10, No. 11 (2020) https://networks.h-net.org/henvironment December 29, 2020
Workshops:
December 14-16 2016 Environment, Society, and the Making of the Modern World The history and legacy of the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, June 1972 Paper "Stockholm in Australia"
IASS Potsdam 28-29 April 2016 Futures Past: Experts, Development and Sustainability Paper: Experts past and future:The Environment, Integrated Global Change Science and the Anthropocene
Biological invasions and national identity ARC grant The Culture of Weeds LP120400273.
Book in prep: Thinking with Nature
Museums in the Anthropocene
Jennifer Newell, Libby Robin and Kirsten Wehner (eds) Curating the Future: Museums Communities and Climate Change Routledge Environmental Humanities, London: 2017
Libby Robin, 'Anthropocene Cabinets of Curiosity: Objects of Strange Change' in Future Remains: A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene (eds. Gregg Mitman et al) (University of Chicago Press, 2018) pp. 205--18
Understanding Australia in The Age of Humans: Localising the Anthropocene ARC Grant DP 160102648 (2016-2018) (with Iain McCalman University of Sydney, Kirsten Wehner, Jennifer Newell, and others)
The Anthropocene in Museums: Workshop Deutsches Museum Munich 3-4 December 2015 http://www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/events_conf_seminars/calendar/ws_anthropocene-in-museums/index.html
History of Science
Key recent publications:
Robin, Libby with Stephen Boyden (2018), ‘Telling the Bionarrative: A Museum of Environmental Ideas’, Historical Records of Australian Science 29(2) pp A-O https://doi.org/10.1071/HR18007 Published online: 14 June 2018 (15pp)
Robin, Libby with Max Day, ‘Changing Ideas about the Environment in Australia: Learning from Stockholm’. Historical Records of Australian Science 28(1): 37—49. doi.org/10.1071/HR17004
Maroske, Sara, Libby Robin, and Gavan McCarthy, ‘Building the History of Australian Science: Five Projects of Professor R. W. Home (1980-present)’ Historical Records of Australian Science 28(1): 1—11. doi.org/10.1071/HR16018
Special Issue: Desert Science (eds Libby Robin, Steve Morton and Mike Smith) Historical Records of Australian Science 25(2) 2014: http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/109/issue/7244.htm
Environmental Humanities Hub (Co-convenor with Thom van Dooren USyd) www.aehhub.org
Special Award for Public Environmental History
- ASEH 2019 Distinguished Career in Public Environmental History Award awarded by the American Society of Environmental History, Columbus Ohio, 13 April 2019.
Citation: http://history.cass.anu.edu.au/news/2019-distinguished-career-public-environmental-history-awards
Biography
Emeritus Professor Libby Robin FAHA is an historian of science and environmental ideas. She is Emeritus Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University.
Career highlights include Guest Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm in the Division of History of Science and Technology (2011-2014; affiliated professor 2015-2017) and Senior Fellow in the National Museum of Australia's Reseach Centre (2007-2015).
Libby has published widely in the history of science, international and comparative environmental history and the ecological humanities. She has won national and international prizes in History (How a Continent Created a Nation), in Zoology (Boom and Bust), and in literature (Flight of the Emu, The Future of Nature).
She was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities in 2013.
Researcher's projects
Climate Change and the humanities
Curating the Future: Museums Communities and Climate Change (Newell, Robin and Wehner eds., Routledge 2017) 298 pp.
Museums and Climate Change Network: http://www.amnh.org/our-research/anthropology/projects/museums-and-climate-change-network
Robin, Libby 2020, 'Museums in the Long Now: History in the Geological Age of Humans', Journal of the Philosophy of History, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 359-381pp.
Robin, Libby, Dag Avango, Luke Keogh, Nina Möllers, Bernd Scherer and Helmuth Trischler, ‘Three Galleries of the Anthropocene’, The Anthropocene Review Vol. 1(3) 2014. Pp 207–224 doi:10.1177/2053019614550533
Environment and Justice
Lukasiewicz, Anna, Stephen Dovers, Libby Robin, Jennifer McKay, Steven Schilizzi and Sonia Graham (eds.) Natural Resources and Environmental Justice: Australian Perspectives, Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 2017. 284pp
Environmental humanities:
Co-convenor of the Australian Environmental Humanities Hub http://www.aehhub.org/news/
Environmental Humanities (foundation series editor with Iain McCalman), Routledge. (2015-2018)
Relevant Publications:
Libby Robin 'Environmental humanities and climate change: understanding humans geologically and other life forms ethically' WIRES Climate Change 2018
Libby Robin, 'No Island is an Island', Aeon December 2014 http://aeon.co/magazine/science/no-island-is-an-island-in-a-cosmopolitan-age/
Bergthaller, Hannes, Rob Emmett, Adeline Johns-Putra, Agnes Kneitz, Susanna Lidström, Shane McCorristine, Isabel Pérez Ramos, Dana Phillips, Kate Rigby and Libby Robin, ‘Mapping Common Ground: Ecocriticism, Environmental History, and the Environmental Humanities’, Environmental Humanities Vol. 5 (November 2014), pp. 561-576.
Libby Robin 2012, 'Global Ideas in Local Places: The Humanities in Environmental Management', Environmental Humanities, vol. 1, pp. 69-84
Expertise for the Future (international project with KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory, Stockholm):Conferences, workshops and two major books:
Libby Robin, Sverker Sörlin and Paul Warde (eds) The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change (Yale University Press, 2013) WINNER 2013 New England Book Prize for Anthology
Paul Warde, Sverker Sörlin and Libby Robin The Environment: A History (in prep).
Anthropocene:
Libby Robin ‘Museums in the Long Now: History in the Geological Age of Humans’, Journal of the Philosophy of History 14(3) (2020) 359–381. doi:10.1163/18722636-12341448
Libby Robin 2013. ‘Histories for Changing Times: Entering the Anthropocene?’, Australian Historical Studies, 44(3): 329-340 DOI: 10.1080/1031461X.2013.817455.
Libby Robin and Will Steffen, 2007. ‘History for the Anthropocene’, History Compass, 5(5): 1694–1719; doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00459.x
Libby Robin ‘The Future Beyond Numbers’ in Nina Möllers and Christian Schwägel (eds.) The Anthropocene / Anthropozien Munich: Verlag Deutsches Museum [English and German] [2014, in English 2015 in association with exhibition]
Member of the Anthropocene Curriculum Project HKW Berlin 2014.
The Observatory Project (Mellon Foundation) with Iain McCalman (University of Sydney)
Climate and Culture in Australia (ARC Grant 2002-2005) Tim, Sherratt, Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin (eds) A change in the weather: Climate and culture in Australia, Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press. 2005 http://www.nma.gov.au/about_us/publications/a_change_in_the_weather/
Biological invasions:
Culture of Weeds ARC Project LP120200472 (with industry partners National Museum of Australia and Royal Melbourne Botanic Gardens). Book in prep: Libby Robin Fear of Ferals
see also
Robin, Libby ‘Wilderness in a Global Age, Fifty Years On' (Special Wilderness Act Retrospective Forum) Environmental History, Vol 19(4), October 2014: 721-727
Comparative studies between Australia and South Africa (with Jane Carruthers, University of South Africa). See: Libby Robin and Jane Carruthers 2012, 'National identity and international science: the case of <em>Acacia</em>', <em>Historical Records of Australian Science</em> 23(1) 34-54 http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/HR12002 ; Jane Carruthers and Libby Robin, ‘Taxonomic imperialism in the battles for Acacia: Identity and science in South Africa and Australia’, Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 65(1), 48-64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00359191003652066
History of Arid Zone Science
Dickman, Christopher R. and Libby Robin, ‘Putting Science in its Place: The Role of Sandringham Station in Fostering Arid Zone Science in Australia’, Historical Records of Australian Science, 2014, 25, 186-201 http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/HR14014
Robin, Libby, Steve Morton and Mike Smith ‘Writing a History of Scientific Endeavour in Australia’s Deserts’ Historical Records of Australian Science, 2014, 25, 143-152 http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/HR14011
Alive with the Dreaming!: Songlines of the Seven Sisters LP110200743 (with National Museum of Australia and nine Aboriginal corporations).
Also: Libby Robin, Robert Heinsohn and Leo Joseph (eds) 2009. Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country, Melbourne, CSIRO Publishing. http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6009.htm
Science and National Identity Libby Robin 2007. How a Continent Created a Nation, Sydney, UNSW Press. http://www.unswpress.com.au/isbn/0868408913.htm
Interdisciplinary environmental studies
International bioregionalism: Libby Robin 2012. ‘Seasons and Nomads: Reflections on Bioregionalism in Australia’ in Tom Lynch, Cheryll Glotfelty and Karla Armbruster (eds.) The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place, Georgia FL, University of Georgia Press, pp 278-294.
Conservation history and policy Libby Robin, Christopher R. Dickman and Mandy Martin (eds) Desert Channels: The Impulse to Conserve, Melbourne, CSIRO Publishing. 2010 http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6406.htm
Australian cases: Grafton, R. Q. Libby Robin and R. J. Wasson (eds), Understanding the Environment: Bridging the Disciplinary Divides, Sydney: UNSW Press. 2005 http://www.unswpress.com.au/isbn/086840912X.htm
The scientific aesthetic Mandy Martin, Libby Robin and Mike Smith, Strata: Deserts Past, Present and Future, Mandurama: Mandy Martin with Land and Water Australia. 2005 http://fennerschool.anu.edu.au/publications/books/strata.php
History of Ornithology in Australia
Libby Robin 2012, 'Conservation through Knowledge: A Short History of the First National Ornithologists' Society in Australia', in W.E. Davis, H.F. Recher, W.E. Boles (ed.), <em>Contributions to the History of Australasian Ornithology</em>, Nuttall Ornithological Club, USA, pp. 1-49.
Libby Robin, 2001. The Flight of the Emu: A hundred years of Australian ornithology 1901-2001, Carlton: Melbourne University Press. http://catalogue.mup.com.au/978-0-522-84987-5.html
Available student projects
As per the normal practice in the humanities, prospective students propose projects to me for consideration. I am now retired and not normally taking new students.
Current student projects
RECENT GRADUATES (ANU):
Elizabeth Boulton 'Climate and environmental change: time to reframe threat?' 2020
Sharon Willoughby 'Gardening the Australian Landscape' 2020
Lilian Pearce, 'Critical Histories for Ecological Restoration', 2019
Cameron Muir 'Broken Country: Science, Agriculture and the "Unfulfilled Dreams" of Inland Australia 1880-present' (Graduated December 2011) See also: Cameron Muir The Broken Promise of Agricultural Progress London: Routledge 2014.
Alan Williams 'Aboriginal Population Dynamics and their Response to Climate Change through Prehistory' [completed 2015]
Sonya Duus 'Controversies around coal mining in Australia' [completed 2015]
Kate Andrews 'Learning from the history of agricultural development in Northern Australia' [completed 2015]
Alison Pouliot 'A thousand days in the forest: An Ethnography of the Culture of Fungi' [completed 2016]
Edward Deveson 'Plagues and Players: An environmental and social history of Australia's Southern Locusts' [completed 2017]
Diane Erceg 'Explorers of a Different Kind: A History of Antarctic Tourism 1966-2016' [completed 2017]
Lilian Pearce 'Historicising Ecological Restoration:Cultural and Environmental Practice in Australia' [completed 2019]
INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
Graduated (2012) Fei Sheng ('Fisher') 'Chinese environmental ideas in 19th century goldfields Australia' (Peking University)
Graduated 2012 UCL London, Susanna Lidstrom.
Past student projects
Sharon Willoughby The Agius Evolution Garden (with Richard Wilford) Kew Gardens: Kew 2020.
Alison Pouliot The Allure of Fungi CSIRO 2019; and (with Tom May) Wild Mushrooming: A Guide for Foragers CSIRO 2021.
Cameron Muir “Ghost species and shadow places: Seabirds and plastic pollution on Lord Howe Island” (Griffith Review 63: Feb 2019)
- FINALIST in the 2019 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Science Journalism.
- Runner up for the Bragg/UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing
Elizabeth Boulton, “Climate change as a ‘hyperobject’: a critical review of Timothy Morton's reframing narrative”, WIREs Climate Change 7(5), September/October 2016 pp. 772-785 https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.410
Lilian Pearce Ken Inglis Postgraduate Prize 2016 for ‘Restoring Broken Histories’, later published as: Lilian Pearce, ‘Restoring Broken Histories’ Australian Historical Studies 48(4):Oct 2017, pp 569-591 DOI: 10.1080/1031461X.2017.1377739
Daniel Connell Water politics in the Murray-Darling Basin Federation Press 2007
George Main Heartland: the regeneration of rural place UNSW Press 2005
Bernadette Hince 'Environmental history of subantarctic islands' (Îles Kerguelen, Île Saint-Paul, McDonald, Heard, Macquarie, Auckland and Campbell Islands) (Unpub. thesis 2006)
Publications
- Robin, L., Sörlin S. and Warde P. (eds) The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change, New Haven: Yale University Press 2013 (565pp.) (WINNER 2013 New England Book Prize for Anthologies)
- Robin, Libby 2012. Seasons and Nomads: Reflections on Bioregionalism in Australia in Tom Lynch, Cheryll Glotfelty and Karla Armbruster (eds.) The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place, Georgia FL, University of Georgia Press, pp 278-294.
- Robin, Libby and Jane Carruthers 2012, 'National identity and international science: the case of Acacia', Historical Records of Australian Science 23(1) 34-54.
- Robin, Libby 2011. History for Global Anxiety, in The Future of Environmental History: Needs and Opportunities (RCC Perspectives 2011, Issue 3) [eds: Kimberly Coulter and Christof Mauch], Munich: Germany, pp. 41-44
- Carruthers, J., Robin, L., Hattingh, J., Kull, C.; Rangan, H. and van Wilgen, B.W. 2011. A native at home and abroad: the history, politics, ethics and aesthetics of Acacia, Diversity and Distributions 17(5) September pp. 810-821.
- Robin, Libby 2011. "Perceptions of place and deep time in the Australian desert: using art in environmental history" in Timo Myllyntaus (ed) Thinking through the Environment , Cambridge: White Horse Press, 81-99