Environmental Humanities at Brown becomes a center | Cogut | Brown University
Cogut Institute for the Humanities
Date May 16, 2024
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Environmental Humanities at Brown becomes a center

By Gregory Kimbrell

After seven years of building community and advancing research, the Environmental Humanities at Brown (EHAB) initiative at the Cogut Institute enters its next phase.

Portrait of Macarena Gómez-Barris
Macarena Gómez-Barris (Modern Culture and Media)

We’re pleased to announce that the Environmental Humanities at Brown (EHAB) initiative will become a center at the institute in Fall 2024. Macarena Gómez-Barris, the Timothy C. Forbes and Anne S. Harrison University Professor of Modern Culture and Media, has been appointed its inaugural director.

Environmental humanities programming was established at the institute in 2017 by a cohort of faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and students across disciplines with shared investments in the increasingly pressing environmental questions confronting our world.

Beginning with the Earth(ly) Matters conference in 2018, the group has advanced research and collaborative courses around the environmental humanities, engaging scholars from Brown and beyond exploring a rich array of topics, including talks on Black ecology; climate change and democracy; environmental decolonization and justice;  ethical landscaping; and contemporary “nature writing.” EHAB builds on a vibrant community of environmental humanities scholars from over 14 different academic units.

 

“ This new center [...] builds upon Brown’s world-class reputation in the humanities and the collegial work of a community of scholars. ”

Macarena Gómez-Barris

“This new center is a tremendous development,” says Gómez-Barris. “It builds upon Brown’s world-class reputation in the humanities and the collegial work of a community of scholars determined to contribute to the understanding of our local and planetary challenges and the collective reimagination of our world.”