On February 27, Lillian Taylor will present her research on the environmental history of Atlantic piracy at the Water in a Changing World speaker series hosted by the Pittsburgh Collaboratory for Water Research, Education, and Outreach. In this talk, "Natural and Unnatural Threats: British Piracy and the Environmental Imagination During the Little Ice Age," she will discuss how interpretations of climate and environmental change influenced how New England colonists justified their support, and later persecution, of British pirates. Additionally, she places this research in conversation with the history of science to suggest that shifting modes of producing environmental knowledge during the seventeenth century shaped whether pirates surfaced in the environmental imagination as threats or as assets.
Lillian, a senior majoring in environmental science and minoring in history, currently works as an administrative and research assistant at the World History Center. She first developed her research on the environmental history of piracy as a Digital Atlas Design intern in Spring 2023. Her independent research, conducted under the mentorship of former WHC Associate Director Dr. Molly Warsh, has since been supported by the David C. Frederick Honors College’s Brackenridge Fellowship. Lillian’s accomplishments reflect the WHC’s commitment to fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and training undergraduate students in digital historical methods!