Modern and Contemporary Studies (1800−Present)

Environmental Humanities

Environmental Humanities is one of the LUCAS research themes, bringing together members of the three LUCAS clusters.

Researchers within this theme come from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines, but are united in their interest in the role that knowledge and methods from the Humanities can play in studying the environment.  

Since their separation into different fields and disciplines, the sciences and the humanities seem to have tacitly agreed upon a fundamental distinction of their objects of study: human culture and non-human nature, which were long understood on different terms and conditions, and studied through different methodologies. This distinction has become increasingly unconvincing in an age in which humans have become an ecological factor themselves and in which nature can no longer be studied as a-historical or untouched by human agency. Looking beyond the nature-culture divide is urgently needed to understand how humans interact with the non-human world, how modernity has changed eco-systems all over the globe, how representations of nature inform our relationship to non-human life, but also how human culture depends on ecological materialities that shape the physical conditions of humanity in the world.   

Researchers in our theme address these questions and combine a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches in order to tackle environmental questions concerning human culture, society, and politics. They contribute to discussions about human-nature interactions, including sustainability and renewable energies in the context of societal change, food production in a world of limited resources, conservation strategies in situations where different economic and political interests overlap, and the relation between the Global North and South in terms of climate justice and the division and distribution of resources.

The research theme functions as a network of collaborating researchers from both LUCAS and other faculties and universities. Together, they organize workshops (e.g. Humanity in an age of extinction, Sept 2023), guest lectures (by e.g. Daniel Pauly, Cornelia Nauen and Kate Brown), and a reading group. Researchers in this group also actively engage with the topics in their teaching. The faculty of Humanities offers a wide range of courses, in different BA and MA programs, focused on strategies from the field of Environmental Humanities and the design of a new MA program on the topic is currently coordinated by our research theme.