Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Environmental Humanities at Brown

Led by a steering committee of Brown University faculty, fellows, and students

The Initiative for Environmental Humanities at Brown (EHAB) is the center of an intellectual community focused on environmental learning and research in the humanities. We are faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates who study environmental topics from a wide variety of humanistic disciplines. EHAB includes speaker series, workshops, and reading groups, and is a resource for identifying faculty members who work in this area and the courses they offer.

The environmental humanities have emerged as a dynamic site of multidisciplinary research and teaching that brings the diverse methods of the humanities to bear on understanding the more-than-human world and our relationship(s) with it. Such interdisciplinary endeavors are urgently needed, as the environmental challenges confronting us today rank among the most complex and most pressing that humanity has ever faced. The humanistic disciplines provide historical perspective on how we got here and offer a rich array of resources for imagining and enacting different, more environmentally sustainable ways of life.

While EHAB coordinates events and intellectual initiatives in environmental humanities, it also encourages collaboration with researchers in the natural and social sciences who study the environment. We partner informally with related groups on campus such as the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES) and the Science and Technology Studies program (STS) to help faculty and students to connect diverse fields of study in their research and teaching on the environment.

EHAB playlist on YouTube

Steering Committee

Faculty Members: Mark Cladis (Religious Studies), Bathsheba Demuth (History and Institute at Brown for Environment and Society), Macarena Gómez-Barris (Brown Arts Institute and Modern Culture and Media), Nancy Jacobs (History), Brian Lander (History and Institute at Brown for Environment and Society), Lukas Rieppel (History), Eleni Sikelianos (Literary Arts), and Ada Smailbegovic (English).

Graduate Students: Sophie Brunau (French Studies), Max Conley (History), Shishav Parajuli (Political Science), and Michael Putnam (Religious Studies)

Past Members: Mary Tuti Baker (postdoctoral fellow, Cogut Institute and Political Science), 2019–20; David Frank (postdoctoral fellow, Cogut Institute and Philosophy), 2020–22; Sharon Krause (faculty member, Political Science), 2017–23.

Since 2018, Environmental Humanities at Brown convenes speaker series, workshops, and conferences as well as a reading group. Join us!
Affiliated faculty pursue teaching and have research interests in environmental humanities across 15 departments. Affiliation is voluntary and expressions of interest welcome.