Bringing together scholars and practitioners focused on culture, ecologies, and environmental action from across the Bloomington campus, the Environmental Futures team investigates how the arts and humanities address how we understand, affect, and can respond to environmental risks and possibilities through culture, art, and history. Our collaborative work is driven by a commitment to environmental justice, and to the inherent relation of ecological attention and ethical action.
Through a series of reading groups, speakers, and performances, we will consider what deep knowledge of the past and imagination of possible futures might offer our ecologically precarious present, how ethical, aesthetic, religious, and philosophical reflection on the relation of humans to the more-than-human world can enrich civic conversations about environmental justice; how art, literature, and media both engage and transform environmental awareness and action; and, most generally, how arts and humanities research, practice, and education can contribute to a more equitable future.
The team is also working to enhance course offerings and tracks at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in the environmental arts and humanities in coordination with the BA in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. Partnering with the Integrated Program in the Environment, we plan to provide pedagogical training and support to faculty developing new courses in environmental ethics and sustainability literacy and work with faculty to develop clear paths for undergraduate research experiences in the area
The team is currently planning an exciting series of spring events, including a monthly reading group, an Eco-Expo of current graduate research and creative activity, partnerships with visiting artists Cindee Klement and Julie Schenkelberg, and an photography exhibition by biologist and team member Roger Hangarter with related programming.
The Environmental Futures team is also collaborating with the Institute for Advanced Study which hosts the yearly Bloomington Symposia. In the Spring of 2025, the symposium will invite interdisciplinary conversation on creative ecologies with scholars from across the University.