A day-long conference, “Common Places: Keywords for a More Than Human World,” on April 30 will honor Professor Emeritus William Cronon, who held the position of Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison before his recent retirement.
Organized by Cronon’s former PhD students, the gathering will feature a special keynote address by Cronon and presentations written in Cronon’s honor by former students. Panel discussions will focus on the shifting cultural meanings of keywords that have guided their mentor’s thinking about nature, space, and history, in the tradition of Raymond Williams’ classic book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society.
After having served for more than a decade as a member of the Yale History Department, in July 1992 Cronon became the Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 2003, he was named Vilas Research Professor at UW-Madison, the university’s most distinguished chaired professorship.
Cronon was a founding faculty fellow of the Nelson Institute’s Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE), the multidisciplinary environmental research unit created in 2006, and served as its Director from 2007-11.