European Network of Environmental Humanities

Led by the Utrecht Centre for Environmental Humanities (CEH), this Seed funded project will organize a 2-day interdisciplinary workshop and networking event in autumn 2023. Representatives from major Centers for Environmental Humanities in Europe will be invited to share their expertise and insights. Connections to most of these centers have already been established, and this workshop will help consolidate and formalize the relationship and explore opportunities for future collaboration and joint grant applications. Utrecht CEH would like to take the lead in establishing a European Network of Environmental Humanities Research and thus become a hub for this growing interdisciplinary field. This workshop will also showcase the work of Utrecht CEH and Pathways to Sustainability.

This workshop will focus on the role of humanities in addressing questions of societal awareness of climate change, sustainable futures, environmental justice, and related issues. Ideas will be exchanged and best practices for collaboration between environmental humanities scholars and scholars in other disciplines. The workshop will involve scholars at different career stages (both from UU and from the invited centers) and will explore the opportunities and pitfalls of inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration and research, focusing on the critical role humanities scholarship plays in addressing and rethinking questions of sustainability and environmental thought.

The workshop will lay the foundation for a European Network of Environmental Humanities and for future collaborative partnerships (and grant applications) in research and education. The team will collect best practices for (and prepare a report on) new and imaginative inter- and transdisciplinary research, teaching, and outreach that foreground the role of the environmental humanities.