Calling all environmental humanities students, practitioners, and scholars! The Center for Science and Society invites you to join our Environmental Humanities Working Group!
What is Environmental Humanities?
As an academic discipline, the "environmental humanities” strives to highlight the innovative ways the humanities (i.e. literature, history, visual arts, cultural studies, gender studies, and philosophy), can contribute to how we as people think about the environment and environmental problems. Through these perspectives, scholars and everyday citizens alike are given an opportunity to examine and redefine the meaning behind our human interactions and relationships to the natural world. In acknowledgement that climate change and the social and ecological challenges it produces can not be solved by science alone, the environmental humanities has emerged as a field offering a more nuanced understanding of today’s crisis in efforts to foster a more sustainable future.
Who We Are
The Environmental Humanities Working Group (EHWG) is an interdisciplinary group of Columbia University students, staff, faculty, and alumni passionate about bridging the intellectual concepts and technical approaches housed within the humanities and environmental sciences to create new understandings, perspectives, and insights about our world. Our members come from diverse backgrounds and across disciplines to create new ideas, share resources, and build community through monthly discussions, events, and activities.
What We Do
The purpose of the Environmental Humanities Working Group is to create a new space for cross-disciplinary and intergenerational discussions and collaborations, which:
- Highlight the intersections and synergies between environmental and humanities topics
- Inspire the generation of new ideas, perspectives, and/or projects, while also providing a safe and productive space to share current and/or working ideas, perspectives, and/or projects for feedback
- Catalyze opportunities for the formation of organic connections between group peers
- Foster the identification and/or development of mechanisms within the university intended to expand the continuity of environmental humanities work at Columbia University for current and prospective university affiliates (students, staff, and faculty)
- Bridge educational gaps between the themes, skills, methods, and teachings of environmental and humanities disciplines
- Offer opportunities for broader public engagement and information sharing between Columbia University and our larger residential community
This purpose was co-created by EHWG members after our Inaugural February 2026 meeting. Feedback on purpose/mission statement for the group is always welcome from our community members.
How We Work
Monthly meetings take the following format and offer time for:
- 1-2 presentations on works-in-progress from members who would like feedback on their work or prospective projects
- 1 member (or guest) speaker to lead conversation on important topic/idea/practice
- Small group breakout discussions
- Collective brainstorming of administrative and collective action items to be completed by the next meeting to advance group goals and community impact
Join Us
Our next Environmental Humanities Working Group is April 16, 2026 from 1pm-2:30pm in 513 Fayerweather Hall. RSVP required.
Please sign up for our email listserve via this form to stay up to date on EHWG news, updates, and activities.