Recognizing that understanding environmental history enriches and contextualizes environmental policy and practice, Rutgers' Center for Historical Analysis invites paper proposals for a cross-disciplinary conference focusing on the Garden State's 20th century ecological and political/economic transformations. Issues abound, of course, ranging for example from preserving/revitalizing forests and watersheds to engaging the challenges of urban brownfields and toxic waste sites. Research that place New Jersey environmental problems and solutions in historical contexts are especially welcome.

We anticipate that conference panels will address four broad themes: Water, Land, Air, and Work. The first three represent divisions of the "natural" environment; the fourth invites attention to the built environment for labor, whether in factories, offices, or homes. We are as interested in analysis of remediation and repair as we are in studies of damage and degradation, as interested in narratives that address planning and policy successes as in those that document their shortcomings. The core questions animating the conference are three:

What aspects of the state's environmental history would be most valuable for environmental policy makers and stakeholders to appreciate? What issues in environmental policy and advocacy call for substantive historical research to help guide planning and decision-making? Where, on both counts, may we discover models framed within or beyond New Jersey useful for defining problems and contexts?

Proposals (1-page abstract and a short vita/resume) are invited from academics, environmentalists, policy makers or planners, and from graduate students in disciplines connected to the conference themes (e.g., environmental history, policy, or science; urban or rural studies, geography...). An edited collection of conference papers is planned; publication will be with Rutgers University Press. RCHA will cover local expenses for presenters and will assist with their travel costs.

Please send proposals by January 15, 2003 to the address below. Notifications will be sent by January 31 to all who offer proposals. For further information, contact RCHA co-directors Susan Schrepfer (schrepfe@rci.rutgers.edu) or Philip Scranton (scranton@crab.rutgers.edu).