Humanities and Sustainability
Keywords:
What do the humanities contribute to sustainability studies?
Ecological sciences and the humanities must be coupled in the sustainability enterprise. Scientists look at physical processes, and social scientists examine sociological processes. Humanists focus on ideas, values, language, culture, and history. To sustain our human communities, our natural resources, and our rich global biological and cultural heritage, we must explore humans’ beliefs about their relationship to nature and integrate knowledge and policy across the disciplines in order to understand, inform, and direct human development toward a responsible, sustainable future.
Humanistic studies help sustain our environment by focusing on ideas, values, language, culture, and history by integrating knowledge across disciplines. Through a number of programs and projects, the IHR continues our focus on the humanities, sustainability, and the environment by providing support for scholars whose research contributes to our understanding of the world that surrounds us. Since 2007, the IHR has been supporting scholars working across disciplinary lines to articulate the role of the humanities in environmental issues.
IHR Fellows
2010-2011
Principle Investigator(s): Joni Adamson, Associate Professor, School od Letters and Sciences
Principle Investigator(s): Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Professor of History
2009-2010
Principle Investigator(s): Anne Feldhaus, Religious Studies, School of Historial, Philosophical and Religious Studies; Megha Budruk, School of Community Resources and Development
The 2007-2008 IHR Fellows theme was "The Humanities and Sustainability."
Sustainability, Sense of Place, and Cultural Preservations
Principal Investigator(s): Elizabeth A. Brandt, Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Steve Semken, Assistant Professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration
Consultant, Christopher Boone, Associate Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change and School of Sustainability
Sustainability, Systems, and Ecological Art
Principal Investigator(s): Julie Anand, Assistant Professor, School of Art
David Birchfield, Assistant Professor, Arts, Media and Engineering
Claudia Mesch, Assistant Professor, School of Art
Visiting Fellows:
Principle Investigator(s): David J. Vazquez, Department of English, University of Oregon
Aldo Leopold: The “Fierce Green Fire” of Sustainability
Principal Investigator(s): Dan Shilling, Independent scholar; adjunct faculty, ASU Department of English
Feminist Fronts: Invention of Gendered Traditions of War
Principal Investigator(s): Lorraine Dowler, Director of Women's Studies, Associate Professor of Geography, Pennsylvania State University
On the Ambiguous Religious Roots of the Environmental Crisis
Principal Investigator(s): Lissa McCullough, Independent scholar; adjunct professor of Religious Studies, Muhlenberg College
ihr Seed Grants
Nature, Culture, and History at the Nation's Edge: Humanities Perspective on the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Project Director(s): Paul Hirt, Associate Professor of History, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies; Cody Ferguson, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies
Religious Practices and Their Influence on Individual Well-Being and Environmental Ethics: The Case of Pilgrimage Tourism by the Ganges
Project Director(s): Christine Buzinde, Associate Professor, School of Community Resources and Development; David Manual-Navarrete, Assistant Professor, School of Sustainability
Project Director(s): Mary Fitzgerald, Associate Professor, School of Dance
Co-Principal Investigator(s): Richard Mook, Assistant Professor, School of Music; Elizabeth Johnson, Coordinator, Public Practice, Herberger Institute
Investigator(s): Linda Essig, Professor, School of Theatre and Film; Melissa Britt, Faculty Associate, Dance
Project Director(s): Tamara Underiner, Associate Professor, School of Theater and Film; Seline Szkupinski Quiroga, Assistant Professor, School of Transborder Studies; Donna Winham, Assistant Professor, College of Nursing and Health Innovation
Project Director(s): Grisha Coleman, Assistant Professor, School of Arts, Media and Engineering/School of Dance; Todd Ingalls, Research Professor, School of Arts, Media and Engineering; Barry Sparkman, Academic Assoc (FSC), School of Sustainability
Project Director(s): Gary Marchant, Paul Schiff Berman, Kenneth Abbott, Laura Dickinson, Andrew Askland; Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law
Whole Local Slow: Exploration of the Complex Relationships Between Food Systems, Bodies, Economies, Ecologies, Cultures
Project Director(s): Jacob Pinholster, Theatre and Film; Jeff McMahon, Theatre and Film; Jennifer Setlow, Theatre and Film
Project Director(s): Paul Hirt, Associate Professor, Department of History; Daniel Arreola, Professor, School of Geographical Sciences; Lindsay Sutton, PhD Candidate, School of Geographical Sciences
Project Director(s): Paul Hirt, Associate Professor, Department of History; Chris Lukinbeal, School of Geographical Sciences
ihr Research Clusters
Facilitator(s): Nalini Chhetri, School of Letters and Sciences and the Center for Science, Policy, & Outcomes; Ann Hibner Koblitz, Women and Gender Studies, School of Social Transformation; Farzad Mahootian, School of Letters and Sciences
Facilitator(s): George M. Thomas, School of Politics and Global Studies; Stephen West, Chinese Professor, School of International Letters and Cultures
Facilitator(s): Maria Luz-Torres, Women and Gender Studies; Angelita Reyes, Professor, African and African-American Studies/English
Facilitator(s): Victoria Thompson, Associate Professor of History, School of History, Philosophical and Religious Study; Wendy Plotkin, History
Facilitator(s): Kate Duncan, School of Art; Elizabeth (Betsy) Brandt, School of Human Evolution and Social Change
ihr working groups
ihr Public Events
2007-2008
Public lecture by Linda Weintraub, "Power's On: Contemporary Art and the Primordial Sun"
2009-2010
Faculty Seminar Series: "Crucial Contexts: Sustainability"
Speakers: Peter Goggin, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Joni Anderson, School of Letter and Sciences
A symposium with Bryant Terry and Mark Winne
2011-2012
Public lecture by Gary Nabhan, "The Future of Food: In the Desert and Beyond"
Sustainability and the Human Condition; A lecture by Bron Taylor "Religion, Spirituality, & the Quest for Environmental Sustainability"
2012-2013
Featured Speakers: Stephanie Buechler, Research Associate; María L. Cruz-Torres, Associate Professor; James Eder, Professor; Mary Margaret Fonow, Professor; LaDawn Haglund, Associate Professor; Pamela McElwee, Assistant Professor; Angelita Reyes, Professor; Amber Wutich, Associate Professor
Public lecture by Raj Patel, "Food Cultures for Sustainability"
Speakers: Bryndis Snaebjornsdottir, Professor in Fine Art, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; Mark Wilson, Reader in Fine Art, University of Cumbria, UK
Public lecture by David Schlosberg, "Theorizing Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse"
Envisioning the Nano City: How Will it Look?, Guest speakers include Drs. Ed Finn and Arnim Wiek