Strengthening the Environmental Humanities

The project Strengthening the Environmental Humanities (2020–26) supported the permanent institutionalization of environmental humanities at the Rachel Carson Center at LMU Munich through strategic funding by a Volkswagen Foundation “Hochschule der Zukunft / University of the Future” grant. From 2020 to 2023, the project team led by Dr. Anna Antonova and Dr. Hanna Straß-Senol developed and formalized the curricula for the interdisciplinary Master’s program Environment and Society. The program was awarded the LMU Innovative Teaching Award in 2023.

In its second phase, also led by Dr. Antonova and Dr. Straß-Senol, the project popularized environmental humanities at LMU and beyond through the One Book - Many Worlds: Munich Reads Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh initiative. This featured a November 2024 visit of Amitav Ghosh in Munich and a series of academic and public-facing events on the humanistic aspects of climate change over the winter semester of 2024/2025, including the student exhibition taumelnd trauen, verschlungen bleiben.