Environmental Humanities @ UT
The environmental humanities (EH) arose as a scholarly formation in the early 2000s. EH brings the methods and perspectives of the arts and humanities to bear on environmental experience, change, and crisis. Encompassing history, anthropology, religious studies, literary and media studies, and Black, ethnic, and Indigenous studies, among other fields, EH learns from but also challenges technoscientific approaches to environmental issues. EH scholars and creators promote critique, action, ethical engagement, social justice, and representation and performance across media.
Environmental Humanities @ UT (EH @UT) emerged as a speaker and workshop series housed in the Department of English in 2014. The community of EH scholars at UT Austin is robust and growing with new faculty hires, graduate student admissions, and course offerings every year. This growth attests to the field's expansion beyond the UT campus, with scholars, planners, and policymakers alike acknowledging the centrality of the arts and humanities to addressing 21st-century environmental crises. Several initiatives at UT Austin have built and continue to build this community, including the 2015-16 Texas Institute for Literary & Textual Studies (TILTS) on “Environmental Humanities," Planet Texas 2050, the Institute for Historical Studies 2020-21 theme on "Climate in Context," and the 2020-22 Humanities Institute Faculty Fellows Seminar on "The Humanities in the Environment / The Environment in the Humanities."
Upcoming Events
Please join us for our upcoming "works-in-progress" series, organized by Professors Heather Houser and Alex Beasley, which will feature current work by UT EH-affiliated faculty and graduate students. If you are interested in sharing work in our series, or if you would like to be added to our mailing list, please contact Professor Heather Houser at houserh@utexas.edu. Our 2020-2021 events are below:
Friday October 22, 2021 at 2:00pm
Zoom Talk with Dr. Marisol Cortez: "Adventures in Alt-Ac, Experiments in Deceleration: Toward a Grassroots EJ Humanities." Presented by EH @ UT and the English Department.
February 18, 2022, 2-3pm (in person, conditions permitting): Work in Progress with Erin McElroy, Assistant Professor of American Studies at UT Austin. Professor McElroy’s research focuses on property, race, technology, housing, and empire, with a particular focus on the imaginative and material dispossession that Silicon Valley imperial formations produce in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Romania. This, along with deep commitments to housing justice, animates their manuscript project, Unbecoming Silicon Valley: Techno Imaginaries and Materialities in Postsocialist Times.
March 4, 2022, 2-3:15pm (Zoom)
"Blacklight: On the Origin and Materiality of Blackness"
Talk by Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Southern California.
Professor Jackson is the author of Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World: winner of the Harry Levin First Book Prize from the American Comparative Literature Association, the Gloria Anzaldúa Book Award from the National Women’s Studies Association, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Studies and is featured in Art Forum magazine's “Best of 2021” issue.
April 1, 2022, 2-3:15pm (in person, conditions permitting)
A reading by acclaimed poet Ed Roberson.
Details TBA.
EH @ UT Affiliates
Faculty and Visiting Faculty
C. J. Alvarez, Assistant Professor, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
Lucy Atkinson, Associate Professor, Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations
Javier Auyero, Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Professor, Department of Sociology
Michael Baker, Assistant Professor, School of Design and Creative Technologies
Samuel Baker, Associate Professor, Department of English
Timothy Beach, Professor, Department of Geography & the Environment
B. Alex Beasley, Assistant Professor, Department of American Studies
Alyson Beaton, Assistant Professor, School of Design and Creative Technologies
Casey Boyle, Associate Professor, Department of Rhetoric & Writing
Erika M. Bsumek, Associate Professor, Department of History
Craig Campbell, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Katherine Canales, Distinguished Senior Lecturer and Chair, School of Design and Creative Technologies
Kate Catterall, Associate Professor, School of Design and Creative Technologies
Iván Chaar López, Assistant Professor, Department of American Studies
Jason Cons, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Elizabeth Cullingford, Professor, Department of English
Alison Damick, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anthropology
Janet M. Davis, Professor, Department of American Studies
Kathryn Dawson, Associate Professor, Department of Theater and Dance
Donna DeCesare, Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Media
Caroline Faria, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography & the Environment
Benjamin Gregg, Associate Professor, Department of Government
Hiʻilei Hobart, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology
Steven Hoelscher, Professor, Department of American Studies
Heather Houser, Associate Professor, Department of English
Jonathan Howard, 2020-21 Donald D. Harrington Faculty Fellow, Assistant Professor of English, Boston College
J.E. Johnson, Lecturer, Department of Theater and Dance
Alison Kafer, Associate Professor, Department of English; Embry Foundation Endowed Associate Professor, Department of Women’s & Gender Studies
Lee Ann Kahlor, Associate Professor, Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations
Gregory W. Knapp, Associate Professor, Department of Geography & the Environment
Katherine Lieberknecht, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture
Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, Raymond Dickson Endowed Centennial Professor, Department of Geography & the Environment
Allen MacDuffie, Associate Professor, Department of English
Tia Madkins, Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Karen Maness, Lecturer, Department of Theatre & Dance
Sven Ortel, Associate Professor of Practice, Department of Theatre & Dance
Robert Paterson, Associate Professor, School of Architecture
Marina Peterson, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
John Pipkin, Lecturer, Department of English; Director of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Program
Adam Rabinowitz, Associate Professor, Department of Classics
Megan Raby, Associate Professor, Department of History
Arlene Rosen, Professor, Department of Anthropology
Donnie Sackey, Assistant Professor, Department of Rhetoric & Writing
Sierra Senzaki, Postdoctoral Lecturer, Department of English
Michael Shensky, GIS and Geospatial Data Coordinator, Research Fellow
Miriam Solis, Assistant Professor, Department of Community and Regional Planning
Pavithra Vasudevan, Assistant Professor, Department of Women's & Gender Studies, Department of African & African Diaspora Studies
Jayme Walenta, Lecturer, Department of Geography & the Environment
Graduate Students
Keerti Arora, Department of English
Annie Bares, Department of English
Bryanna Barrera, Department of English
Nichole Bennett, Department of Advertising
Rhya Brooke, Department of English
Haley Eazor, Department of English
Ian Ferris, Department of Rhetoric & Writing
Katherine Field, Department of Art History
Kathleen Field, Program in Comparative Literature
Dylan Gilbert, Program in Italian Studies
Jeremy Goheen, Department of English
Hannah Robbins Hopkins, Department of Rhetoric & Writing
Rachel F. Hunter, Department of English
Nandini Majumdar, Department of English
Khristían Méndez Aguirre, Department of Theatre & Dance
Lindsey Holmes, Department of English
Michael Mason, Department of English
Lauren Nelson, Department of English
Nnenna Odim, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Alyssa Peterson, Department of History
Bryan Sitzes, Program in Middle Eastern Studies
Jesse Ritner, Department of History
Debarati Roy, Department of English
Emma Train, Department of English
Cooper Weissman, American Studies
Deidre Zoll, Program in Community & Regional Planning
