25-26: Wild Humanities

We often think of the study of the environment as something best done by physical scientists who measure water levels, analyze climate records, and model atmospheric patterns. But considering the environment presents problems of scale and perspective that are as imaginative and philosophical as they are quantitative. Our relationship with the natural world and our hopes for the earth’s future are very much related to our imaginative worlds and the stories we tell about them. With this year’s program theme, “Wild Humanities,” we seek to explore ways of shaping and sharing those stories. How do we think differently about the environment when we use the humanities as practices for doing so? And how can connecting with our local communities and wider publics shape the relationship between our thinking, our actions, and the futures we envision? Across the year the program will explore those questions through a variety of research projects and events with the goal of engaging the environment at multiple levels: conceptually, on campus, and in our civic contexts. 

Use the menu to the left to check out the 25-26 "Wild Humanities" projects along with our cohort of faculty and student fellows .

This work is part of the larger Civic Humanities Incubator project titled supported by a Mellon Foundation grant. You can read more about the project here.