Session Abstract

In America, the relationship between human bodies and the environment has undergone dramatic change over the course of the 20^th century as evolving perspectives of what counts as “natural” have been shaped by the broad cultural, scientific, and technological currents that characterize the modern era. Historians have increasingly turned their attention to understanding how the experiences of embodiment and ideas about bodies have both shaped, and been shaped by, shifting ideas and definitions of what is “natural.” Despite the fact that the modern era has long been characterized by the understanding that humans are separate from nature, historians of medicine, technology, science, the environment, as well as in animal and gender studies have increasingly questioned the hegemony of the human/nature dichotomy. This session examines four cases from the mid-20^th to the 21^st centuries that contribute to this ongoing interdiscplinary endeavor: the use of frog bodies in changing scientific understandings of human infertility, maternal concerns over breast milk contamination and environmental degradation, food politics and childhood disability, and the implications of embodied ecological knowledge in efforts to preserve the endangered red knot shore bird.

Each paper explores the degree to which historical and contemporary boundaries between humans and nature are more malleable and permeable – both physically and culturally - than is often acknowledged. In some cases the interactions between humans and nature are distinctly physical, as in the case of scientists handling the wild red knots on the shores of the Delaware Bay. Alternatively, as in the case of breast milk contamination, the connection between bodies and nature has been drawn into a cultural debate over questions of social organization and personal identity. This panel asks what is considered “natural” and how does this change over time? How does the physicality of the human body fit into broader understandings of the material and animal world around us? How have the boundaries between humans and nature been shaped over time? How do we understand the relationship between the experience of embodiment and 20^th and 21^st century ideas about the natural environment? Through a series of case studies this panel addresses these questions and contributes to ongoing scholarly discussion on the complex relationship between humans and nature in the modern era.