This Connected Community is devoted to the innovative paradigm of the Environmental Humanities: it aims to explore the critical role of the humanities in a time of environmental crisis, generating socio-ecological awareness, raising informed critique of existing paradigms and systems, and sustaining social, cultural and ethical change to protect and nourish the diversity of life on our planet. Four European universities with different interdisciplinary perspectives, frameworks and experiences join to explore, compare and exchange pedagogical models and best practices, working toward a collective response to new global challenges.
Programme
This CC provides a platform where students, researchers, academic and administrative staff, as well as artists, civil society and non academic audiences join forces to develop and promote collaborative pedagogical and research initiatives. It means to develop a teaching-research environment promoting not only curriculum but also potential research development. EH students will be involved in research activities, projects and workshops, in collaboration with PhD students and researchers. The CC offers EH research-based strategies for the transformation of pedagogy, in line with EH research on ecological consciousness, environmental affect, inclusive worldmaking and critical reflection on public understandings of sustainability, ecology, disruption, and climate crisis. The CC emphasises research-oriented learning, co-production with students, and the development of experimental interdisciplinary formats, such as:
- Workshops, visits and field-trips (ex. to the lagoon in Venice, the post-extractivist zones around Dresden, the historic automotive transport industry in Coventry alongside Warwickshire’s ancient woodlands—remnants of Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden, the seascapes around Lisbon and ocean history and conservation exhibitions in Portugal);
- Student exchanges;
- Open courses;
- EH Outreach seminars, Engaged Scholarship Workshops, Discussion forum;
- Public exhibitions;
- Co-creative Phd Training: Pathways to Caring & Sustainable Scholarship (based on Theory-U);
- Joint publications (ex: Lagoonscapes, Ecozon@, Ecocene);
- Joint participations in EH podcasts and blogs.
Connected Community Past Activities
EUTOPIA Spring School “Environmental Humanities as a Regenerative Process. Reconnecting Ethics, Knowledge, and Action”, Venice, May 19-23, 2025
The Ca’ Foscari LAST Lab and the EUTOPIA Connected Community on Environmental Humanities organised the “2025 EUTOPIA Spring School on Environmental Humanities as a Regenerative Process. Reconnecting Ethics, Knowledge, and Action“, which was hosted by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Department of Asian and North African Studies, LAST Lab) on May 19-23, 2025 (in-person).
Goals and methods
The goal of this Spring School was to explore the Environmental Humanities (EH) as a regenerative process, bearing significant potential for healing the self, our communities, and social-ecological systems. Participants were guided through a co-creative redefinition of EH ethics, practices, and desirable goals, crystallising such vision in the form of a co-designed chart of values. They were then given the possibility of exploring first-hand the potential of such vision(s) to imagine and effect social-ecological regeneration, through a site visit to Ca’ Roman island, an archetypal example located in the Venetian Lagoon.
Through a co-creative format, based on a Theory-U approach, participants were provided with a structured pathway to (a) unearth and enable their core motivations and emotional response(s) to the themes of the school; (b) crystallise shared visions; and (c) prototype ways to effect social-ecological change. Besides providing a structured process for co-creation, this approach is helpful in strengthening participants’ self-efficacy, by reinforcing the connection between their heart, brain, and hands, as well as generating a sense of community. While we all know that these aspects are key to regeneration, they are often overlooked in academic settings. This school tried to make up (at least in part) for this deficiency.
EUTOPIA Spring School on Ecolinguistics, Venice, May 15-16, 2025
The Ca’ Foscari LAST Lab and the EUTOPIA Connected Community on Environmental Humanities organised the “2025 EUTOPIA Spring School on Ecolinguistics”, which was hosted by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice on May 15-16, 2025. The Spring School offered a deeper understanding of the nexus between language, discourse, power, and sustainability transformations.
Activities were planned in two main blocks: the first day (May 15, hybrid) provided an introduction to the development and current trends in ecolinguistic research, as well as to qualitative and quantitative methods for ecological discourse analysis. The second day of the Spring School (May 16, in-person only) provided participants with the opportunity to experience hands-on methods for collaborative analysis and re-storying of environmental texts and for corpus-based analysis on a large amount of textual data.
The introductory class was held by Prof. Sune Vork Steffensen from the University of Southern Denmark. Sune is the regional representative for Nordic Countries of the Intl. Ecolinguistics Association and is among the most important voices in ecolinguistic research in Europe. He was joined by Prof. Daniele Brombal (UNIVE, Connected Community Co-lead), Dr Sergio Conti (Roma Tre University, LAST Lab & NICHE) and PhD candidate Laura Locatelli (UNIVE & LAST Lab).
Publications
Lagoonscapes, Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities, Vol. 5 – Num. 2, December 2025
The special issue of Lagoonscapes “Teaching the Environmental Humanities in Europe” gathers pedagogical reflections, teaching concepts, and experiments developed by university teachers across Europe who work in conversation with the field of the Environmental Humanities. Amidst the escalating climate crisis, accelerated by a resurgence of right-wing nationalisms and ongoing systems of environmental injustice, learning how to teach (and learn) with, through, and about socio-ecological precarity, interdependencies, and enmeshment is a crucial and increasingly urgent task that requires an expansion of traditional methodologies and subject matters. The specific European focus of this issue emerges as an expansion of the network created through the EUTOPIA Connected Community on the Environmental Humanities, gathering scholars from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, NOVA University Lisbon, TUD University of Technology Dresden, and the University of Warwick. With an emphasis on place-based, creative, and collaborative approaches to pedagogy, this collection features contributions from the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and Belgium that foreground interdisciplinary dialogues – from literary and cultural studies, to visual and conceptual art, maritime history, ethnography, and (coastal) archaeology. Committed to an understanding of Environmental Humanities teaching as education for change, many contributions take the learning process beyond customary classroom settings and foster conversations between critical EH theory and embodied, situated experience.
Download the issue at this link!
How to get involved?
Contacts
Lead: Prof. Shaul Bassi (bassi@unive.it)
Local Facilitator: Laura Cappellesso (eutopia@unive.it)