Field Notes

Welcome to Field Notes, PPEH's collection of interviews, essays, and reflections from our community. Here, you will find a record of our ongoing conversations and observations on various topics within the environmental humanities.

 

  • Ecotopian toolkit icons of school supplies and a thermometer.

    Ecotopian Tools for the Academy: “Environmental Injustice and the Philadelphia School District” Course

    March 4, 2024

    The University of Pennsylvania is the largest private property owner in the city of Philadelphia, The University has also been the recipient of criticism for contributing to the gentrification of the West Philadelphia neighborhood and for not paying PILOTS. This is the primary change community members are asking for and the most impactful way to contribute to meaningful change.
  • Two cloaked figures walk across sand dunes.

    Cli-Fi Review — Third Time's a Charm: The Evolution of Dune’s Environmental Message Across Film Adaptations

    March 1, 2024

    The ecology of Dune is a vital force created through Frank Herbert’s complex world-building; however, the complexities of the Dune universe are exactly what rendered the novel seemingly unadaptable into a successful film version.
  • A woman holds up a student made poster with dos and donts for a healthy Earth.

    Climate Stories on Film at Paul Robeson High School

    February 9, 2024

    As part of her Public Research Internship with My Climate Story in 2022-23, Christy Choo directed a short documentary capturing the Climate Stories of teachers and students at Paul Robeson High School in West Philadelphia.
  • A small body of water surrounded by shrubs and small trees with a clear blue sky above.

    Plants, Soils, and Multispecies Commons at Morris Arboretum & Gardens: An Interview with Bryan Thompson-Nowak

    January 29, 2024

    In conjunction with this year's call for "Ecotopian Tools for Multispecies Flourishing,” Bryan Thompson-Nowak, Director of Education at Morris talks about the foundation of this year’s theme— soil— and how Morris works to be a steward of and partner with the earth under our feet.
  • Text, " Meet the 2024 Ecotopian Toolkit Jury."

    Get to Know Our 2024 Ecotopian Toolkit Jury

    January 24, 2024

    Our 2024 call for "Ecotopian Tools for Multispecies Flourishing" invites artists and designers of all kinds to introduce “ecotopian” tools that might be used by visitors and inhabitants of Morris Arboretum & Gardens to support diverse, multi-species communities, including humans, amidst t
  • Text, " Ecotopian Tools for Multispecies Flourishing."

    Open Call: 2024 Morris + PPEH Ecotopian Tools for Multispecies Flourishing

    January 23, 2024

    In cooperation with the Morris Arboretum & Gardens,PPEH invites you to participate in a project to create Ecotopian Tools for Multispecies Flourishing. Successful proposals for Ecotopian Tools will be explored in designer-led public workshops at Morris in spring 2024 and will be documented in a print catalog and also included in the expanding digital “living archive,” the Ecotopian Toolkit for the Anthropocene.
  • Text, "2023-24 Climate + Democracy Fellows," beneath headshots of 7 people.

    Meet the 2023-24 Climate and Democracy Fellows

    January 16, 2024

    PPEH is delighted to introduce the 2023-24 Climate and Democracy Graduate Fellows.
  • Aman Sharma holds a camera with a long lens surrounded by nature.

    A Path To Youth Climate Activism in New Delhi

    December 8, 2023

    Aman Sharma uses photography as a tool to engage others to protect the natural beauty that is all around us, even in perhaps unlikely places. In this Field Note, he shares his path to discovering how to use his unique perspective, talents, and love for the biodiversity in his home, New Delhi, India, to advance the fight against the climate crisis.
  • Protestors holding up sign in defense of water, life, and territory

    A Week in Nicte Ha's Life

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 29, 2023

    Welcome to the fifth and final post of the photo essay series "A Week in the Life of a Mexican Environmentalist.” Our fifth post focuses on Nicte Ha’s photographs and fragments from an interview with her about her activism.
  • Plants for sale at outdoor market

    A Week in Citlalli's Life

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 28, 2023

    Welcome to the fourth post of the photo essay series "A Week in the Life of a Mexican Environmentalist.” Our fourth post focuses on Citlalli’s photographs and fragments from an interview with her about her activism.
  • Human hands holding a birds nest made of trash

    A Week in Yameli's Life

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 27, 2023

    Welcome to the third post of the photo essay series "A Week in the Life of a Mexican Environmentalist.” Our third post focuses on Yameli’s photographs and fragments from an interview with her about her activism.
  • A path in the woods

    A Week in Fátima's Life

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 26, 2023

    Welcome to the second post of the photo essay series "A Week in the Life of a Mexican Environmentalist.” Our second post focuses on Fátima’s photographs and fragments from an interview with her about her activism.
  • Colorful outlines of leaves behind title, "A week in the life of a Mexican environmentalist"

    A Week in the Life of a Mexican Environmentalist

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 23, 2023

    In this introduction to his "A Week in the Life of a Mexican Environmentalist" photo essay series, 2022-2023 PPEH Graduate Fellow Pablo Aguilera Del Castillo invites us to dwell on the photographs taken by four women to document their everyday efforts to better understand and protect the fragile subterranean landscape in Yucatán, Southern Mexico. 
  • Welcome 2023 Climate Heroes

    Meet Our 2023 My Philadelphia Climate Story Climate Heroes!

    February 6, 2023

    Please welcome our first ever Climate Heroes! This year, as part of My Philadelphia Climate Story, 11 talented high school students from three public Philadelphia schools have been selected to participate in climate writing workshops this winter and spring.
  • A page from Souvenir of Germantown, 1913 showing “East Sharpnack Street (looking east from No. 79)” and “The home of Our Dealer in Butter and Eggs”

    Reading Buildings Like Documents with Joy Huntington

    News

    November 17, 2022

    An interview with ACLS Leading Edge Fellow Joy Huntington, appointed to Historic Germantown for the project "Decolonizing Historic Germantown: Re-Framing Sites, Collections, Landscapes, and Museums," a collaboration with PPEH. Huntington discusses her research into Germantown's early 20th century history as a site of Black businesses and culture using 1913's "A Souvenir of Germantown" booklet.
  • Zade, Faith, and Lorraine bio photos

    Welcome, Academic Year Student Eco-Reps!

    November 15, 2022

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is excited to welcome three 2022-2023 Student Eco-Reps for the academic year!
  • Two people stand with their back to the camera, looking at shelves of zines

    The Climate of Concepts: Zine Library

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    November 9, 2022

    In this Field Note from PPEH 2021-22 Postdoctoral Fellow Nandita Badami, she shares student work and reflections from her Spring 2022 class, "The Climate of Concepts: How Words Build Worlds." Read on to learn about how this interdisciplinary work led to student-created zines, and more.
  • Under a white tent, a student talks into a microphone held by a reporter with headphones

    Listen Up! Philadelphia Youth Share Their Climate Stories

    News

    October 17, 2022

    PPEH's Climate Champions, nine high school teachers working in eight Philadelphia School District schools across the city and approximately 200 of their students joined us at Irvine Auditoriu
  • three photos of Christy Choo, Aman Sharma, and Maria Villareal Simon.

    PPEH Welcomes Academic Year Undergraduate Public Research Interns

    Announcement

    October 17, 2022

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is delighted to announce our 2022-2023 Undergraduate Public Research Interns for the academic year. Congratulations to the three fellows, and welcome to PPEH!
  • Three photos of Pablo, Cecilia, and Elisheva

    2022-2023 Graduate Research Fellowships Awarded

    Announcement

    October 3, 2022

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is pleased to announce a wonderful new cohort of graduate research fellows for the 2022-2023 academic year.
  • Teachers are seated around a table in conversation.

    Gathering Together for a My Climate Story Teacher Retreat

    News

    July 13, 2022

    On June 17th, we kicked off summer with a My Climate Story retreat on Penn's campus in Williams Hall. PPEH Founding Director Bethany Wiggin, Prog
  • Photo collage of the 4 interns

    Welcome, Summer Researchers!

    Announcement

    June 22, 2022

    We are so pleased to welcome a new cohort of summer researchers to PPEH!
  • The logos of the University of Edinburgh, Penn, and PPEH

    Call for Participation: Working Group on Intersecting Energy Cultures

    Announcement

    June 21, 2022

    We are so excited to launch this Call for Participation with the Working Group on Intersecting Energy Cultures! You can read the full text of the call below.
  • Jane Robbins Mize and Rachel Cypher headshots

    PPEH Welcomes New Postdoctoral and Public Pedagogies Teaching Fellows

    Announcement

    June 6, 2022

    We are delighted to announce our 2021-2022 Public Pedagogies and Postdoctoral Fellows.
  • Dr. Bethany Wiggin stands at a podium, talking about My Climate Story

    Witnessing Climate Stories

    News

    May 12, 2022

    This March, PPEH’s Dr. Bethany Wiggin attended the Chesapeake Conversations: Telling Youth Climate Stories event to present the My Climate Story project, and facilitate a climate storytelling workshop with participants. Afterward, we spoke to two of the event's organizers about their experiences sharing climate stories in this way for the first time.
  • a leaf surrounded by flowers

    Introducing Our Cohort of “Climate Champion” Teachers!

    Announcement

    April 21, 2022

    We are delighted to welcome this astonishingly talented cohort of nine Philadelphia High School teachers as a Climate Champions and part of the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities' My Climate Story public research project.
  • a person stands facing away from the camers with baskets on their back

    Meet the 2022 Ecotopian Toolmakers!

    Announcement

    April 8, 2022

    We are delighted to announce our 2022 Ecotopian Toolmakers for Delaware Watershed Justice! Our jury reviewed an exceptionally strong pool of applicants, and selected a cohort of five interdisciplinary creators who will be holding public workshops at the Independence Seaport Museum (ISM) in May and June. Read on to learn more about our Toolmakers and see images of their past work–and stay tuned for their workshop dates at ISM! We hope to see you there.
  • Call for high school teachers

    We're Partnering with High School Teachers in Philadelphia for Climate Literacy

    Announcement

    April 5, 2022

    Through April 15, 2022, we are recruiting high school teachers across disciplines to become funded “Climate Champions” as part of our My Climate Story climate literacy project! Watch the 30-minute webinar with the project's lead, PPEH's Dr. Bethany Wiggin, to learn more.
  • Detail of map by artist Deirdre Murphy. Colored marks show bird migration over the Schuylkill River

    Guiding Our Next Steps

    News

    March 16, 2022

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is embarking on an ambitious strategic planning process and we want to hear from you! Please take 10 minutes (not more!) to help us discover some basic information about how you--our diverse stakeholders at Penn, in Philadelphia, and across the planet--interact with PPEH.
  • Kristina Lyons sits in front of grass and trees

    PPEH Announces '22-'23 Topic Director: Kristina Lyons

    Announcement

    February 7, 2022

    PPEH announces our next topic director, Kristina Lyons, who will curate a slate of public events in academic year 2022-2023 around the topic Listening for the Anthropos-not-seen.
  • Flooded highway in Philadelphia, a toy robot, and dark water

    PPEH is Now Accepting Applications For The 2022 Ecotopian Toolkit: Ecotopian Tools for Delaware Watershed Justice!

    Announcement

    January 21, 2022

    PPEH is excited to announce that our 2022 Call for Ecotopian Toolmakers is now live! In cooperation with the Independence Seaport Museum (ISM), the Penn Program for Environmental Humanities invites you to participate in a project to create Ecotopian Tools for water justice in the Delaware River watershed.
  • a view of the Penn Farm and Duke Farm

    Growing Experiential Learning Programs on Campus Farms

    News

    December 9, 2021

    Campus farms, sometimes called student farms, can be found throughout the United States.
  • Roy Scranton presenting on Killing the Messenger: Challenges in Climate Change Communication through Zoom

    EH, Ethics, and Teaching for the Future with Roy Scranton

    News

    October 27, 2021

    On Oct 6, 2021 PPEH was pleased to host Dr. Roy Scranton from the Notre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHUM). As part of his visit to learn more about our work, he gave a talk titled "Killing the Messenger: Challenges in Climate Change Communication" at one of our Working Wednesdays series,
  • Mr. Charles Reeves, Jr. and Mrs. Tammy Reeves talk to Alex Imbot on Penn's campus.

    Updates on Futures Beyond Refining with Mr. Charles and Mrs. Tammy Reeves

    News

    October 7, 2021

    On a warm day this June, PPEH Founding Director Bethany Wiggin, Program Coordinator Angela Faranda, and I (Mia D’Avanza, also a Program Coordinator and managing editor of Field Notes) met with Philadelphia-based community organizers and
  • banner reads "Welcome to PPEH"

    PPEH Fall 2021: Welcome back!

    News

    September 21, 2021

    Whether we see you on campus or on screen, we’re delighted to share this fall’s line up of public research and programs in the environmental humanities in Penn and in and around Philadelphia.
  • Oxford-Penn-Toronto logos

    Announcing the Oxford-Penn-Toronto International Doctoral Cluster in Environmental Humanities

    Announcement

    September 8, 2021

    We are excited to announce the development of an international research cluster in the Environmental Humanities, being launched by faculty and graduate students at the Universities of Oxford, Pennsylvania, and Toronto.
  • Two women stand in front of green landscapes

    PPEH Welcomes New Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellows

    Announcement

    August 27, 2021

    We are delighted to announce our 2021-2022 Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellows.
  • Former PES refinery site.

    From Petrol to Plastics: Re-powering People at Home

    News

    August 5, 2021

    What is the material, environmental, social, and medical impact of our addiction to fossil fuels, given their ubiquitous use in the construction of our physical environments?
  • Collage excerpts of landscapes like ocean, hay fields, tographical and aerial maps

    Ways of Imagining Environmental Justice: Spring 2021 Student Showcase

    News

    July 20, 2021

    This guest post was written by Dr Rebecca Macklin, the 2020-21 Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow with the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities.
  • Two Black teenage girls protest against nuclear power

    Understanding Environmental Injustice Through The Philadelphia Tribune Archive

    News

    June 15, 2021

    The Spring semester has drawn to a close, and Summer is in full swing. What better time to take advantage of academia's seasonally slower pace and the opportunities for reflection it offers?
  • '"Ma visits me on the wind" video collage: a woman stands in a collage landscape

    On Dispossessed Time and Its Suspension

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 9, 2021

    Welcome to the third and final guest post on "The Arts of Noticing", edited by PPEH Graduate Fellow Pooja Nayak, a doctoral candidate in Anthrop
  • A remnant prairie in North Eastern Illinois, at a distance showing a hard-to-discern variety of species, one prominent linden tree, and distant tree line.

    Interleaving Ways of Knowing a Prairie: Drawing, Data, and Plants

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 20, 2021

    Welcome to the second of three guest posts on "The Arts of Noticing", edited by PPEH Graduate Fellow Pooja Nayak
  • A rural road with small buildings. A reddish hill with green plants is behind the buildings.

    Time in Fragments

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 26, 2021

    Welcome to the first of three guest posts on "The Arts of Noticing", edited by PPEH Graduate Fellow Pooja Nayak
  • Female Katydid on a leaf in Amboli, Maharashtra

    Welcome to "Arts of Noticing, Thinking with Doing"

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 20, 2021

    The following Field Note is by PPEH Graduate Fellow Pooja Nayak, a doctoral candidate in Anthropology and South Asia Studies at Penn.
  • Cover of the Timescales book. Text in color on black.

    Talking Timescales with Carolyn Fornoff and Patricia Eunji Kim

    News

    April 5, 2021

    In advance of our April 8th book launch for Timescales: Thinking Across Ecological Temporalities, two of the volume's co-editors and PPEH alums Carolyn Fornoff and
  • Kristen Neville Taylor and Ricky Yanas

    Reflecting on "Solar Imaginaries" with Spring Artists-in-Residence, Kristen Neville Taylor and Ricky Yanas

    News

    April 2, 2021

    This guest post was written with Kristen Neville Taylor and Ri
  • call for submissions flyer with leaves growing from a round shape

    Update on The Philadelphia Area Environmental Justice Curriculum Hub

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    March 23, 2021

    PPEH's Davy Knittle (Graduate Fellow) and Andrew Niess (Mellon Dissertation Fellow) recap rece
  • Yellow flowers growing in a garden

    Writing Stories Into the Garden, Part 3

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    March 9, 2021

    This is the final post in a series of discussions between historian Miranda Mote, a fifth year PhD candidate at
  • An overhead view of rocks and sand at a beach. A hiking shoe steps into the frame at the top of the image.

    Climate Stories in Translation

    News

    March 1, 2021

    In this Field Note from PPEH Public Research Intern and climate storyteller Tsemone Ogbemi, she considers how climate stories and the art of translation overlap.
  • Photo of botanical print on a press

    Writing Stories Into the Garden, Part 2

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    February 17, 2021

    This post is the second of three in a series of discussions between historian Miranda Mote, a fifth year PhD candidate at Penn in the Weitzman School of Design, and archaeobotanist Chantel White of the Penn Museum.
  • collage of public research interns

    PPEH Welcomes New Cohort of Public Research Interns

    Announcement

    February 15, 2021

    We are thrilled to welcome a new interdisciplinary cohort of Public Research Interns.
  • Chantel White and Miranda Mote each standing in front of different greenery

    Writing Stories Into the Garden: Researching Francis Pastorius’ Colonial Garden with an Archaeobotanist and Historian

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    February 5, 2021

    Gardens and farms in North America were and remain practical endeavors, but if we look closely at Native American gardens and colonial American gardening and farming we can see that many people believed plants to be divine beings that had the power to heal and nourish.
  • Screenshot of Digital Environmental Justice Platform, lush green Colombian selva with white text overlay

    Exploring and Creating Collaborations in Colombia: A New Environmental Justice Resource

    News

    January 21, 2021

    How do an anthropologist and a physician teach a new, transdisciplinary class in two languages, across hemispheres, in one semester and emerge with a rich and compelling resource that addresses issues of environmental justice across dynamic communities in Colombia? Read on to find out!
  • gorgeous blue, pink, yellow sunset by photographer Andrew Niess

    Spring 2021 PPEH Newsletter

    News

    January 19, 2021

    Read here to see what we have ready to go in Spring 2021!
  • This is a drawing from artist Kristen Neville Taylor, depicting a sun, row of homes, and energy lines

    PPEH announces Spring 2021 Artists-in-Residence, Kristen Neville Taylor and Ricky Yanas

    Announcement

    December 22, 2020

    PPEH is delighted to announce that Kristen Neville Taylor and Ricky Yanas will be joining us for an artist residency that explores new paths toward necessary transitions away from carbon, and collectively envisions transformation.
  • This shows a dark rectangle split into four equal blocks, each with a portrait of a PPEH team member inside. This is a Zoom platform still.

    Climate Literacy in Uncertain Times: Climate Storytelling and Story Sharing in 2020

    News

    November 24, 2020

    2020 has been a lot. Along with everything else it’s brought, it’s also the year when the present seems finally to have caught up with the future. No longer subject of a forecast, the future seems to be happening now.
  • landscape with tall grass, small wooden structure, and large industrial building

    PPEH Fall 2020: Welcome back!

    News

    September 16, 2020

    PPEH has some fascinating and important events and opportunities lined up for you this semester. Read details in our fall newsletter!
  • PPEH graduate research fellows in collage

    2020-2021 Graduate Research Fellowships Awarded

    Announcement

    July 17, 2020

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is pleased to announce a stellar and disciplinarily diverse new cohort of graduate research fellows for the 2020-2021 academic year. Congratulations to the six fellows, and welcome to PPEH!
  • Headshots of two new PPEH fellows

    PPEH Welcomes New Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellows

    Announcement

    June 18, 2020

    While we all continue to work remotely, we are thrilled to virtually welcome two new additions to our PPEH family this summer and fall. Andrew Niess, PhD candidate in the Department of Music at Penn, joins us this July as this year's PPEH dissertation fellow.
  • pile of urchins in a glass bowl

    Blue Notes, Part 4: The Urchin Merchants

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 17, 2020

    In this final entry in the Blue Notes series, fisherman Jerry Hussey discusses sea urchins, fishing regulations, and climate change in Atlantic Canada.
  • Apocalypse and the Anthropocene cover image

    Apocalypse and the Anthropocene: A Broadsheet

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 10, 2020

    The spring course “Apocalypse and the Anthropocene,” taught by PPEH Postdoctoral Fellow April Anson, explored the narrative mode of the apocalypse in the context of the geologic designation of the Anthropocene. This digital broadsheet is a manifestation of the class's research.
  • collage of new PPEH summer Public Research Interns

    PPEH Welcomes New Summer Cohort of Public Research Interns

    News

    June 9, 2020

    We are thrilled to welcome a new interdisciplinary cohort of Public Research Interns this summer.
  • large red ice-breaker ship with figure in the corner

    Blue Notes, Part 3: Field Work North of 66°

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 8, 2020

    In this post, Arthi Ramachandran (PhD Candi
  • colorful print with blue water, fishing boat and orange fish, with title and course information.

    Brand-new Transdisciplinary Environmental Humanities seminar to be taught in Fall 2020!

    News

    May 20, 2020

    The central "touchstone" course in Penn's new environmental humanities undergraduate minor curriculum will be taught for the first time in the fall semester 2020 by Dr. Kristina Lyons and Dr. Marilyn Howarth.
  • mosaic

    Blue Notes, Part 2: Oceanography as a Patiently Put Together Mosaic

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 14, 2020

    In this post, Professor Melody Jue (University of California, Santa Barbara) discusses her observations during a research cruise in the Santa Barbara Channel. This is the second entry in the Blue Notes Series, edited by Aylin Malcolm.
  • book cover of Ocean, depicts blue green waves with white caps, small white text in the bottom center of the page

    Blue Notes, Part 1: Wet Globalization in Viral Times

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 10, 2020

    In this post, Professor Steve Mentz explains how the historical model of “wet globalization” can inform our thinking about present concerns, and introduces his most recent book, Ocean. This is the first entry in the Blue Notes series, edited by Aylin Malcolm.
  • A humpback whale breaches a deep blue ocean surface with sea birds flying all around it.

    The Scales of the Sea: Introduction to Blue Notes

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 29, 2020

    Despite the importance of marine systems in global ecological networks, we know relatively little about them, which can make ocean conservation difficult. Through a range of literary, historical, scientific, and practical approaches, this series explores how oceans encourage us to expand and blend traditional forms of knowledge.
  • photograph of Regan Fink in blue shirt with white sweater, smiling

    TIPC Contestant Spotlight: Regan Fink

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 24, 2020

    This guest interview is a cross-posting from the Investing For Future blog, maintained by our Climate Finance Documentation Team of
  • Members of Underwater New York stand next to each other in a dimly lit room, Nicole Miller holds a climate game in her arms

    Right to Play: Underwater New York at PPEH Lab

    News

    March 23, 2020

    This guest post was written by the artist members of Underwater New York, Nicki Pombier, Nicole Haroutunian, Helen Georgas, and Nicole Miller, following their micro-residency with PPEH in February 24-26, 2020.
  • view of the schuylkill river with students on the rocky river bank in the bottom left corner

    A Letter to the PPEH Community from our Faculty Director

    News

    March 13, 2020

    We want to support you and have some updates!
  • Hand drawn map of a farm with crops labeled in Spanish

    2019 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 5

    News

    March 4, 2020

    This is the fifth in a series of Field Notes focused on the work resulting from the 2019 Research and Teaching Seed Funds.
  • Performance of the White Mountains  (photo credit: Conrad Erb)

    2019 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 4

    News

    February 20, 2020

    This is the fourth in a series of Field Notes focused on the work resulting from the 2019 Research and Teaching Seed Funds.
  • iceberg with hand and penn in foreground

    PPEH announces 2020 Artist-in-Residence, Amy Balkin

    News

    February 13, 2020

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is proud to announce our 2020 Artist in Residence: Amy Balkin.
  • Izzy Viney engages in conversation with local residents about her research, and explains how mussels naturally clean the waters of the Schuylkill River.

    2019 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 3

    News

    February 5, 2020

    This is the third in a series of Field Notes focused on the work resulting from the 2019 Research and Teaching Seed Funds.
  • distant view of participants walking along the Arno river with vegetation in the foreground

    Walking the Arno: a View of Florence from the River

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    February 3, 2020

    Alumna fellow Luna Sarti reflects on a public walk she co-organized along the Arno River in Florence, Italy this past summer, and the implications of that experience for her archival dissertation research.
  • tattered US flag flying over the refinery at sunset

    Futures Beyond Refining? An eventful day February 3

    News

    January 31, 2020

    The future of the Philadelphia oil refinery is at a critical juncture, and this urgent news post highlights two related events scheduled for this coming Monday, February 3.
  • garbled translation into spanish of my climate story postcard

    My Climate Story in Translation!

    News

    January 30, 2020

    As we continue to collect personal stories of climate change for our My Climate Story project, we've begun a new initiative to make our story prompts and forms reflect the reality of our multilingual communities!
  •   Victoria and Gina interview a local high schooler in order to include adolescent and student perspectives on public health issues present in the San Cristóbal community.

    2019 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 2

    News

    January 28, 2020

    This is the second in a series of Field Notes focused on the work resulting from the 2019 Research and Teaching Seed Funds.
  • Ben Mendelsohn

    Meet the PPEH Fellows: Ben Mendelsohn

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    January 27, 2020

    This Spring we want to give our readers a chance to get to know our talented student and postdoctoral fellows. We are delighted to open the profile series with a brief interview between Program Assistant Rachel Ishikawa and 2018-2020 PPEH Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Ben Mendelsohn.
  • Group of citizens and experts talking in front of screen showing refinery

    Expertise and Advocacy in the Wake of a Refinery Explosion

    News

    January 17, 2020

    PPEH continues to work toward our core commitment to arts-driven inquiry into place, particularly our campus and the City of Philadelphia, in the wake of the bankrupt PES refinery's explosion that rocked the city in the early hours of June 21, 2019.
  • April Anson instructs a participant on using the VR headset and controls

    Exploring the Possibilities of Immersive Environmental Storytelling

    News

    January 17, 2020

    At PPEH, we've long been curious about how play and games might encourage environmental inquiry.  So often environmentalists can seem such insufferable know-it-alls! But what's the role of play in times of crisis?
  • Student signs banner reading "Stop Funding Climate Change"

    Partnership to Encourage and Document Climate Finance on University Campuses

    News

    January 16, 2020

    PPEH has initiated a collaboration with the Wharton Social Impact Initiative (WSII) to challenge teams at colleges and universities across the country to invest a college endowment to drive climate solutions while generating a healthy return on investment.
  • Lucy Corlett and Rachel Odoroff in front of exhibit panel

    Climates of Inequality and Postures of Collaboration

    News

    January 10, 2020

    PPEH’s public-facing work strategically unsettles traditional boundaries between university communities and wider publics. It aims at helping build multi-scale networks of scholars, activists, artists, and practitioners working on issues of environmental justice. To this end, we joined the Humanities Action Lab (HAL) community-curated public humanities project, Climates of Inequality.
  • PPEH Logo

    PPEH is Hiring a New Program Assistant!

    Announcement

    January 2, 2020

    Our fantastic Program Assistant, Rachel Ishikawa, is moving on from Penn! As we say goodbye, good luck and thank you to Rachel, we've got our eye out for someone to take her place on the team, providing creative communications and administrative support to our programs.
  • Daniel Barber headshot

    PPEH Announces '20-'21 Topic Director: Daniel A. Barber

    Announcement

    December 19, 2019

    PPEH announces our next topic director, Daniel A. Barber, who will curate a slate of public events in academic year 2020-2021 around the topic Transition/Transformation.
  • students and faculty member sitting by the biopond on the  University of Pennsylvania campus

    PPEH Launches New Environmental Humanities Minor & Calls for Course Proposals

    Announcement

    December 18, 2019

    We are pleased to announce a brand new Environmental Humanities Minor in the School of Arts and Sciences, which will officially begin accepting students in the fall of 2020!
  • Pedregulho from the side, a housing complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil designed by Affonso Eduardo Reidy and others in 1947

    2019 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 1

    News

    December 16, 2019

    This is the first in a series of Field Notes focused on the work resulting from the 2019 Research and Teaching Seed Funds.
  • Image of Penn students Moving from Boat to Bike at the Hague

    Cultures of Sustainability: Winter Dispatches from a Summer in Berlin and Rotterdam

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    December 12, 2019

    This is a guest blog post by PPEH Faculty Working Group member Simon Richter and student Brea Watkins, who was this past summer's recipient of the PPEH Travel Fellowship
  • VR user with headset in front of the Van Pelt Library

    The Altering Shores VR Pop-Up Stations Go Live!

    News

    November 19, 2019

    Don't miss this week's lead up to the premier performance of The Altering Shores.
  • Series of images of land explosions

    Bridging Experimental Documentary and the Environmental Humanities

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    November 4, 2019

    Rahul Mukherjee and Ben Mendelsohn offer takeaways from “Geosocial Encounters: Ecologies of Documentary Research and Practice,” their two-day symposium on how we come to know human-environment relations through experimental documentary, video art, and research in the environmental humanities.
  • Group of PPEH public research interns outside Houston Hall

    PPEH Welcomes New Public Research Interns

    News

    November 4, 2019

    We are delighted to welcome ten new public research interns for the 2019-2020 academic year who will support PPEH's public engagements in the broad categories of Environmental Data and Climate Storytelling and Climate Finance Research and Documentation.
  • An illustration of the constellation Cygnus (the swan) from folio 179v of LJS 445.

    Animal, Vegetable, Digital: On the Ecologies of Digital Manuscript Studies

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    October 25, 2019

    Describing the representations (and manipulations) of terrestrial and celestial worlds in some of the medieval texts she works with, PPEH graduate fellow Aylin Malcolm explores the ecological implications of digital manuscript studies.
  • a screencap from Another Gulf Is Possible collectives video at https://vimeo.com/286098596

    Gulf Futures: Imagining People-Planetary Possibility with Yudith Nieto

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    October 16, 2019

    PPEH Fellow Knar Gavin offers her reflections on Yudith Azareth Nieto's recent visit as part of the 2019-2020 Elements Lecture Series.
  • Amazonia Estéreo 107.3

    Kristina Lyons's "Rivers and Reconciliation" Project Wins Ministry of Culture Grant

    News

    October 15, 2019

    Assistant Professor Kristina Lyons's collaborative project "Rivers and Reconciliation: Community Recovery of the Mandur River Watershed" has been awarded a grant by Colombia's Ministry of Culture to develop citizen radio programming.
  • April Anson and other participants at the Western Literature Association’s conference (WLA) in Estes Park, Colorado

    How We Talk When We Talk About Public Lands

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    October 7, 2019

    PPEH Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow April Anson considers notions of the public and their commons in what is currently called America.
  • Group of PPEH students fellows and staff with posters launching the #MyClimateStory initiative

    We're Sensing Climate Change

    News

    September 30, 2019

    What kind of data might we need to promote action on climate? What kinds of data are “actionable”?
  • view of the PES refinery from Eastwick

    New Public Humanities Research at PPEH

    News

    September 17, 2019

    How does PPEH navigate the pitfalls of public engagement to make it more hospitable for faculty, students, and community partners? We’re continuing to grow living archives--read about some of our public research interns' latest additions to our digital collections.
  • 2019 to 2020 PPEH Graduate Research Fellows

    Welcome to our 2019-2020 Graduate Research Fellows

    Announcement

    September 13, 2019

    PPEH extends a very warm welcome to our newest cohort of graduate research fellows for the 2019-2020 Year of Elements.
  •  The Severn estuary from Severn Beach. Photo by Marianna Dudley

    Soggy Cities, Entry 4: Bristol

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    August 3, 2019

    In this final entry, Professor Marianna Dudley (History & Environmental Humanities at University of Bristol) reflects on the city of Bristol in England, tracking flows of water through the city's imperial past and into its present.
  • View of Manhattan from “The Hills,” a new park developed on Governors Island’s southern acreage. Photo © Robin Michals, 2018

    Soggy Cities, Entry 3: New York

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    July 1, 2019

    In this entry, Nicki Pombier Berger (Founding Editor, Underwater New York) explores how various writers and artists are responding to New York City's shifting edges.
  • Bethany Wiggin and Tracy Saltz

    Philadelphia School District Environmental Humanities Curriculum Now in the Works

    News

    June 20, 2019

    Guest post from Philadelphia School District math teacher, Tracy Saltz, a student in “Environmental Humanities from the Tidal Schuylkill,” and a Fellow of the Teacher’s Institute of Philadelphia.
  • Martin Premoli and April Anson

    PPEH Welcomes Postdoctoral and Dissertation Completion Fellows

    Announcement

    June 18, 2019

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is thrilled to announce the first two of our new fellows for the 2019-2020 academic year, Dr. April Anson and Martin Premoli.
  • Eko Atlantic City

    Soggy Cities, Entry 2: Lagos

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 11, 2019

    In this entry, Ben Mendelsohn (University of Pennsylvania, PPEH Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow) discusses the coastal ecology of Lagos, Nigeria.
  • A long line for gas in India.

    Fuel Cuts, Part 4: Gas Lines

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 4, 2019

    Written by: Pablo Aguilera Del Castillo
  • Image of a polluted river

    Fuel Cuts, Part 3: Film Form and the Capitalocene

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 31, 2019

    This essay is the third to a four-part series on the social dimensions of energy use.
  • Making Room for the River, by Simon Richter

    Soggy Cities, Entry 1: Semarang

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 29, 2019

    In this entry, Professor Simon Richter (University of Pennsylvania) discusses how rising waters have influenced the city of Semarang in Indonesia. This is the first entry in the Soggy City Series, edited by Martin Premoli.
  • Cover for New York 2140

    Soggy Cities, an Introduction

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 28, 2019

    Are cities ground zero for climate change? Read on to learn more.
  • Picture of the galaxy

    Fuel Cuts, Part 2: Entropic Life and Survival of the Fittest

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 28, 2019

    This essay is the second to a four-part series on the social dimensions of energy use.
  • Road closed sign

    Fuel Cuts, Part 1: What's energy got to do with it?

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 22, 2019

    This essay is the introduction to a four-part series on how energy relates to culture and society. From power dynamics to politics to bodily experience, energy use (and abuse) is as much a cultural and social phenomenon as it is a physical and chemical one.
  • Still from La mujer de los perros (Laura Citarella and Verónica Llinás, Argentina 2015)

    Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema, Essay 5: Dog Lady, Companion Species Utopias in Dystopian Landscapes

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 18, 2019

    The following is the third essay in the five-part series Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema. In it, Valeria Meiller, PhD Candidate in Spanish at Georgetown University, looks at how interspecies companionship and sustainable engagement with the environment are constrained by structures of oppression and marginality in La mujer de los perros (Laura Citarella and Verónica Llinás, Argentina 2015).
  • Boi Neon (Gabriel Mascaro 2015)

    Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema, Essay 4: The Transgressive Power of the Erotic in Boi Neon (2015)

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 14, 2019

    The following post is an essay by Dana Khromov, PhD Candidate in Hispanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. It is the fourth essay in the 5-part series "Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema". In it, Dana looks at how Gabriel Mascaro's 2015 film Boi Neon employs the erotic to challenge the separation of labor time from leisure and private space from public.
  • This is What the Land Does

    Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema, Essay 3: This is What the Land Does

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 12, 2019

    The following is the third essay in the five-part series Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema. In it, Fábio Andrade considers how agribusiness becomes a synonym of state-sponsored violence, displacement, and erasure in the film Ava Yvy Vera (Genito Gomes, Valmir Gonçalves Cabreira, Jhonn Nara Gomes, Jhonaton Gomes, Edina Ximenes, Dulcídio Gomes, Sarah Brites, Joilson Brites, Brazil 2016). Fábio Andrade is a film critic, filmmaker, and a PhD candidate in the Cinema Studies department of New York University.
  • Misael Saavedra in La libertad

    Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema, Essay 2: Rural Time in the Early Films of Lisandro Alonso

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 11, 2019

    The second essay in the 5-part series "Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema." Ashley Brock explores how Lisandro Alonso’s films engage duration and self-referentiality to interrogate questions of temporality and meaning in rural and urban spaces. Rural Time in the Early Films of Lisandro Alonso
  • Still from Viajo Porque Preciso, Volto Porque Te Amo (Marcelo Gomes and Karim Aïnouz 2009)

    Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema, Essay 1: Geology, Loss, and Desire in Viajo Porque Preciso, Volto Porque Te Amo

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 8, 2019

    The following post is an essay by Sebastián Figueroa, a PhD Candidate in Hispanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. It is the first of the 5-part series "Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema".
  • Boi Neon (Gabriel Mascaro 2015)

    Introduction: Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 6, 2019

    This series of essays explores questions of subjectivity, temporality, and desire through representations of shifting notions of humans, animals and land in contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian cinema.
  • Cover Photo

    Neglected Media, Part 2: Synthetic Landscapes of Food Production

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 19, 2019

    Hannah Riddle uses pages from the magazine as a foundation for multidimensional and complex scenes reflecting back on social, cultural and economic phenomena.
  • Endless Rows of Corn

    Neglected Media, Part 1: Soil and Our Food System

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 16, 2019

    This essay is the first in a four-part series reflecting on the modern American food system.
  • Jacob Hershman and Lucy Corlett headshots

    PPEH Welcomes Summer Research Interns!

    Announcement

    April 9, 2019

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is delighted to welcome two new public research interns for summer 2019, Lucy Corlett and Jacob Hershman.
  • Luna Sarti

    Congratulations to Luna Sarti, Dean's Scholar!

    Announcement

    April 3, 2019

    Alumni PPEH fellow, Rising Waters fellow, and PhD candidate in Italian Studies, Luna Sarti, was selected as a 2019 Penn Arts and Sciences Dean's Scholar.
  • The Object Explorer at the museum of the Science History Institute/J. Fusco for Visit Philadelphia

    Explorations in Interpretation: Communicating the Entanglement of Science and Contemporary Life

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    March 27, 2019

    Every week, like many other residents of Philadelphia, I sort the stuff I throw away.
  • Martin Premoli and Luna Sarti Audio Recording

    PPEH is now accepting applications for 2019-2020 Graduate Research Fellows!

    Announcement

    March 18, 2019

    PPEH is thrilled to announce that we are now accepting applications from Penn graduate students who have completed their qualifying exams for one-year research fellowships for the 2019-2020 academic year.
  • textiles in Barmer, India

    2017-18 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 6

    News

    March 15, 2019

    In roundtables convened in Williams Hall November 1 and 15, 2018, faculty recipients of the 2018 Research and Teaching Seed Fund awar
  • proposed art project in Cobbs Creek

    PPEH Announces 2019 Research and Teaching Seed Fund Recipients

    News

    March 10, 2019

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is delighted to introduce its second cohort of Faculty Research and Teaching Seed Fund
  • Pop-up book page designed by students at the Rural Educative Institute in Las Perlas, Puerto Guzmán

    Community Recovery of a Watershed in Times of Perpetuated Conflict and Transition

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    February 19, 2019

    This is a guest blog post by Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Humanities Kristina Lyons, on the public environmental humanities work that forms an integral part of her ethnographic practice.
  • PPEH summer public research intern

    PPEH Now Accepting Applications for a Cohort of Summer 2019 Public Research Interns!

    Announcement

    February 15, 2019

    PPEH is now inviting applications for undergraduate public humanities research interns for Summer 2019! We seek to build a vibrant cohort of interns (cohort size is contingent on the receipt of funding for which PPEH faculty have applied).
  • ecotopian toolkit logo

    PPEH is now accepting applications for the 2019 Ecotopian Toolkit!

    Announcement

    February 5, 2019

    Global warming and other anthropocene challenges, including the ongoing sixth mass extinction event, often lead to apocalyptic visions, or apathy.
  • Memorial Day on the Delaware, print by Roderick Coover

    PPEH announces 2019 Artist-in-Residence, Roderick Coover

    Announcement

    February 5, 2019

    PPEH is proud to announce visual artist Roderick Coover as our 2019 PPEH Mellon Artist-in-Residence.
  • Field Exploration

    Call for Applications: Mellon Graduate Environmental Humanities Fellowship 2019-2020

    Announcement

    February 1, 2019

    PPEH is pleased to invite advanced doctoral students in the School of Arts and Sciences to apply for the Mellon Graduate Environmental Humanities Fellowship.
  • Liquid Histories and Floating Archives students looking out towards the Schuylkill from the South Street bridge

    On Walking, Together: Embodied Research and the Tidal Schuylkill River

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    January 7, 2019

    Liquid Histories and Floating Archives was an experimental seminar that asked students to explore the interweave of global climate change with cultural change, from the hyperlocal vantage point of Philadelphia’s tidal Schuylkill River.
  • Floating Archives by Jacob Rivkin

    New Documentation Released of Jacob Rivkin's Ethereal Art Intervention, Floating Archives

    News

    December 18, 2018

    As Jacob Rivkin wraps up his year as PPEH Artist-in-Residence, we are thrilled to announce the release of this new short film by Aidan Un documenting Rivkin's
  • Welcome to Data Remediations

    Data Refuge launches Data Remediations podcast

    News

    December 15, 2018

    Data Refuge and the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities are excited to share Data Remediations, a brand new podcast designed to re-mediate quantitative measures of our rapidly changing planet, translating them into stories and art to stir hearts and minds.
  • picking queen anne's lace under Platt Bridge

    On Water Retrospective: Walk Around Mingo Creek

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    December 12, 2018

    On the eve of PPEH Rising Waters Fellows' trip to India for the Penn Winter Institute in Mumbai, we're looking back to the warm days of the Summer
  • Biological Design Students working at the biology teaching labs at Stephen Levine Building.

    2017-18 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 5

    News

    December 11, 2018

    In roundtables convened in Williams Hall November 1 and 15, 2018, faculty recipients of the 2018 Research and Teaching Seed Fund awards presented first fruits of their projects to faculty, staff and students.
  • PPEH fellows along the Schulykill River

    Join the PPEH Core Team: Apply to Be Our Next Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow!

    Announcement

    December 6, 2018

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is now inviting applications for our second two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow. We seek applicants whose research, teaching, and public engagements support and complement PPEH’s core commitments:
  • Margaret Badding, pictured in front of a database she helped construct of US cities’ urban carbon emissions sources

    2017-18 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 4

    News

    December 5, 2018

    In roundtables convened in Williams Hall November 1 and 15, 2018, faculty recipients of the 2018 Research and Teaching Seed Fund awards presented first fruits of their projects to faculty, staff and students.
  • Fantasy Island students

    2017-18 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 3

    News

    December 5, 2018

    In roundtables convened in Williams Hall November 1 and 15, 2018, faculty recipients of the 2018 Research and Teaching Seed Fund awards presented first fruits of their projects to faculty, staff and students.
  • Green Infrastructure

    2017-18 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 2

    News

    November 29, 2018

    In roundtables convened in Williams Hall November 1 and 15, 2018, faculty recipients of the 2018 Research and Teaching Seed Fund awar
  • Behind the Scene in Barmer, India

    2017-18 Faculty Seed Fund Sprouts and Shoots: Part 1

    News

    November 29, 2018

    In roundtables convened in Williams Hall November 1 and 15, 2018, faculty recipients of the 2018 Research and Teaching Seed Fund awar
  • Eric Holthause Climate Grief

    Climate Futures, Climate Grief and the Climate Game: Eric Holthaus Joins PPEH for Series of Residencies

    Announcement

    November 16, 2018

    Meteorologist, journalist, aspiring game developer Eric Holthaus, will join PPEH as our first Writer-in-Residence for three short stays in 2018-19 beginning with a visit in early
  • Penn in Berlin and Rotterdam group shot

    Fighting for the Future: Lessons from Berlin and Rotterdam

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    November 1, 2018

    This is a guest blog post by Lucy Corlett, recipient of the PPEH Travel Fellowship for the Penn in Berlin and Rotterdam Program in 2018.
  • PPEH logo

    PPEH is Hiring!!

    Announcement

    October 16, 2018

    Come join the growing core team at PPEH! We're hiring a Program Assistant to provide operational and administrative support for our programs. Details here.
  • Professor Orkan Telhan demonstrates proper pipetting techniques during the Violacein lab

    Call for Applications: Faculty Research and Teaching Seed Fund 2018-2019

    Announcement

    October 9, 2018

    For the second year, the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities invites faculty to apply for Research and Teaching Seed Funds in support of projects that speak to PPEH's core commitments.
  • PPEH

    Last chance to apply for a 2018-2019 Undergraduate Research Fellowship with PPEH

    Announcement

    September 21, 2018

    The PPEH Undergraduate Research Fellows Program, now in its fifth year, is still accepting applications from students across all of Penn’s Schools.
  • Floating Archives on Schuykill River

    Floating Archives on the River on three Saturdays in September

    News

    September 3, 2018

    Floating Archives – a major floating public art installation by artist Jacob Rivkin in partnership with the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities – offers moving, animated projections of historic river images, displayed on a screen suspended between canoes and paddled up the tidal river.
  • Medieval text

    Medieval treasures, future trash

    August 13, 2018

    The following post is part of the Exploring the Environments of Modernity series, featuring the voices of some of the organizers and participants of a symposium that explored the conceptual arenas of "
  • Mourning the Spokes-animal for Climate Change

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    July 11, 2018

  • koko

    Mourning the spokes-animal for climate change

    July 11, 2018

    Earlier this summer, the Gorilla Foundation announced the passing of their beloved Koko. Koko, a western lowland gorilla, made fame with her ability to communicate to humans through sign language.
  • avengers

    Avengers in the Anthropocene

    June 5, 2018

    In her opening address for the Environments of Modernity conference, literary scholar Kate Marshall tackled one of the most prevalent contemporary figures of environmental discourse: extinction.
  • Escapisms Poem

    Escapisms: An Essay, Enjambed

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 25, 2018

    Exploring the Environments of Modernity is a seven part series featuring the scholarly participants of a symposium held earlier this year. Knar Gavin showcases her poem reflecting on the overall message of the event.
  • PPEH's Data Refuge at Philadelphia Science Festival 2018 (Patricia Kim/PPEH)

    PPEH and Data Refuge at the Philadelphia Science Festival

    News

    May 21, 2018

    A recap from the Philadelphia Science Festival’s Science Carnival, which brought hundreds of families, educators, and passersby in conversation with PPEH and Data Refuge fellows at the specially-designed “Is it Science or is it Art” booth on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
  • Environments of Modernity poster

    Exploring the Environments of Modernity: An Introduction

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 18, 2018

    Exploring the Environments of Modernity is a seven part series featuring the scholarly participants of a symposium held earlier this year. Nicole Welk-Joerger gives an introduction to frame a discussion that will continue through the summer.
  • Embodied scientist exploration at Environmental Performance Agency Headquarters, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, July 2017. Photo credit Catherine Grau/Environmental Performance Agency

    Meet the Ecotopian Toolkit Artists, Part 2

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 18, 2018

    For this year's PPEH Ecotopian Toolkit, each selected artist/team will produce projects that engage floating on/ sinking in/ and otherwise living with urban waters; and explore what it might mean to face contemporary ecological challenges with critically attuned and creatively oriented tools.
  • Documentation of the Eastwick Oral History Project Kiosk at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum (William Hodgson/PPEH)

    Eastwick Oral History Kiosk "Jukebox" Installation at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge

    News

    May 18, 2018

    The Eastwick Oral History Project documents the rich history and complex cultural life of Eastwick — a vibrant community in Southwest Philadelphia. The neighborhood’s history is marked by deep connections to the landscape and waterways, as well as experiences of displacement and environmental injustice.
  • Kristina Lyons and Ben Mendelsohn Image

    Welcome New PPEH Scholars Kristina Lyons and Ben Mendelsohn

    Announcement

    May 16, 2018

    PPEH welcomes two new scholars to our intellectual community at Penn: Kristina Lyons (Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Humanities) and Ben Mendelsohn (2018-2019 Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow). Each comes to the program with exciting scholarly projects, excellence in teaching, innovative research approaches, and visions for public engagement in Philadelphia and beyond.
  • PPEH Undergraduate Fellows Carlos Price-Sanchez and Seung-Hyun Daniel Chung share their culminating project Paper Waters:Dreams at Slought, May 2018.

    PPEH Fellows: End of Year News and Notes

    News

    May 16, 2018

    Catch up with several of our 2017-2018 graduate and undergraduate PPEH Fellows, as they complete their public engagement projects, celebrate milestones, and look back on their year.
  • Sabrina Elkassas's Photo

    Meet the Data Storytellers, Part 4

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 10, 2018

    As part of Penn's first Teach-In since 1969, organized by the Faculty Senate, PPEH and Data Refuge Stories set up Stories Hubs across campus at central locations of interdisciplinary knowledge production and circulation.
  • Courtesy of Dylan Gauthier, Kendra Sullivan, and Marina Zurkow

    Meet the Ecotopian Toolkit Artists, Part 1

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 9, 2018

    Last week, we announced the five 2018 Ecotopian Toolkit artists and teams, each of whom will produce projects with PPEH that engage floating on/ sinking in/ and otherwise living with urban waters; and explore what it might mean to face contemporary ecological challenges with critically attuned and creatively oriented tools. Over the next two weeks, we will introduce the Toolkit recipients and share glimpses of their work, ahead of the expanded launch of their projects over the next several months.
  • Bri Barton's image

    Schuylkill Corps Questionnaire: Bri Barton

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 4, 2018

    Bri Barton is an artist, witch, plant grower and organizer. Paired with artist Meg Lemieur, Bri lead an interactive art workshop on story-telling and activism, using their shared work, Waterways as a point of reference.
  • Wastewater pipes run through hidden gulches along the route of the Santa Cruz Wastewater Walk, 2015. (FICTILIS).

    2018 Ecotopian Toolkit Recipients Announced

    News

    May 3, 2018

    This spring, the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH) invited artists to contribute proposals to the second installment of the Ecotopian Toolkit, an ongoing public project that began one year ago. 
  • PPEH/Data Refuge Booth at the 2018 Philadelphia Science Festival (PPEH)

    Research Residences, Part 3

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 3, 2018

    Throughout the course of the spring semester, PPEH Fellows and students enrolled in our "Public Environmental Humanities" course engaged local partners in short-term research residencies with local environmental organizations, public humanities projects, and municipal/civic entities. In this blog series, fellows and students reflect on the following prompt: “How has your research residency shaped your own research project?”
  • Seung-Hyun Chung image

    Research Residencies, Part 2

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 2, 2018

    Throughout the course of the spring semester, PPEH Fellows and students enrolled in our "Public Environmental Humanities" course engaged local partners in short-term research residencies with local environmental organizations, public humanities projects, and municipal/civic entities. In this blog series, fellows and students reflect on the following prompt: “How has your research residency shaped your own research project?”
  • Nicole Welk-Joerger Image

    Meet the Data Storytellers, Part 3

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 30, 2018

    As part of Penn's first Teach-In since 1969, organized by the Faculty Senate, PPEH and Data Refuge Stories set up Stories Hubs across campus at central locations of interdisciplinary knowledge production and circulation. These sites included Penn Nursing, Annenberg School of Communication, Van Pelt Library, David Rittenhouse Labs. At each hub, teams comprised of PPEH student fellows gathered stories about data, research, and evidence-based practice, all of which will be entered into the Data Refuge storybank. Who are the people that generously gathered stories? Meet some of them here:
  • Art in Arctic Fields

    Art in Arctic Fields, Part 1

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 26, 2018

    In October last year, 30 artists sailed along the coast of Svalbard in the tall ship Antigua. Led by guides and crew, we landed to explore the landscape daily. In this blog series, reflections based on field notes are combined with glimpses into artists’ studios, tracing the complexity of the connections between the frozen north and our globalized lives.
  • Philadelphia Hydrology Map focused on Mingo Creek (current)

    Research Residencies, Part 1

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 25, 2018

    Throughout the course of the spring semester, PPEH Fellows and students enrolled in our "Public Environmental Humanities" course engaged local partners in short-term research residencies with local environmental organizations, public humanities projects, and municipal/civic entities. In this blog series, fellows and students reflect on the following prompt: “How has your research residency shaped your own research project?”
  • Emma Singer Image

    Meet the Data Storytellers, Part 2

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 19, 2018

    As part of Penn's first Teach-In since 1969, organized by the Faculty Senate, PPEH and Data Refuge Stories set up Stories Hubs across campus at central locations of interdisciplinary knowledge production and circulation. These sites included Penn Nursing, Annenberg School of Communication, Van Pelt Library, David Rittenhouse Labs. At each hub, teams comprised of PPEH student fellows gathered stories about data, research, and evidence-based practice, all of which will be entered into the Data Refuge storybank. Who are the people that generously gathered stories? Meet some of them here:
  • Luna Sarti Image

    Meet the Data Storytellers, Part 1

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 16, 2018

    As part of Penn's first Teach-In since 1969, organized by the Faculty Senate, PPEH and Data Refuge Stories set up Stories Hubs across campus at central locations of interdisciplinary knowledge production and circulation. These sites included Penn Nursing, Annenberg School of Communication, Van Pelt Library, David Rittenhouse Labs. At each hub, teams comprised of PPEH student fellows gathered stories about data, research, and evidence-based practice, all of which will be entered into the Data Refuge storybank. Who are the people that generously gathered stories? Meet some of them here:
  • What does is mean to do public research in the environmental humanities? This and other questions lie at the heart of this series of essays, "Public Engagements." Contributors, PPEH Fellows and students, reflect on: Who is the "public" in my public research? How will they be engaged? Does my project need a public audience? A participant audience? Participant observers? Am I looking for research subjects? Co-creators? How will I document my social practice research?

    Public Engagements, Part 3

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 10, 2018

    What does is mean to do public research in the environmental humanities? This and other questions lie at the heart of this series of essays.
  • What does is mean to do public research in the environmental humanities? This and other questions lie at the heart of this series of essays, "Public Engagements." Contributors, PPEH Fellows and students, reflect on: Who is the "public" in my public research? How will they be engaged? Does my project need a public audience? A participant audience? Participant observers? Am I looking for research subjects? Co-creators? How will I document my social practice research?

    Public Engagements, Part 2

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 10, 2018

    How can we imagine new ways to tell stories that inspire urgency and radically re-orient our consciousness toward climate crisis and the Anthropocene?
  • Data Refuge Periodic Table

    Public Engagements, Part 4

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 10, 2018

    What does is mean to do public research in the environmental humanities? This and other questions lie at the heart of this series of essays, "Public Engagements." Contributors, PPEH Fellows and students, reflect on: Who is the "public" in my public research? How will they be engaged? Does my project need a public audience? A participant audience? Participant observers? Am I looking for research subjects? Co-creators? How will I document my social practice research?
  • What does is mean to do public research in the environmental humanities? This and other questions lie at the heart of this series of essays, "Public Engagements." Contributors, PPEH Fellows and students, reflect on: Who is the "public" in my public research? How will they be engaged? Does my project need a public audience? A participant audience? Participant observers? Am I looking for research subjects? Co-creators? How will I document my social practice research?

    Public Engagements, Part 1

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    March 21, 2018

    What does is mean to do public research in the environmental humanities? This and other questions lie at the heart of this series of essays, "Public Engagements." Contributors, PPEH Fellows and students, reflect on: Who is the "public" in my public research? How will they be engaged? Does my project need a public audience? A participant audience? Participant observers? Am I looking for research subjects? Co-creators? How will I document my social practice research?
  • Lake Mead Image

    What's in a Name? The Anthropocene, Part 3

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    March 19, 2018

    This year's PPEH undergraduate fellows represent a range of scholarly fields, modes of inquiry, and creative practices. Together, they have reflected on their ideas surrounding the concept of the "Anthropocene." In particular, they responded to the following prompt: How has recognition of the Anthropocene influenced your thinking about your trajectory in terms of research, scholarship, career, life? This is the third in a series of three posts regarding the Fellows' own thinking and critical pursuits within a moment of profound human imprint on our environment.
  • This year's PPEH undergraduate fellows represent a range of scholarly fields, modes of inquiry, and creative practices. Together, they have reflected on their ideas surrounding the concept of the "Anthropocene." In particular, they responded to the following prompt: How has recognition of the Anthropocene influenced your thinking about your trajectory in terms of research, scholarship, career, life? This is the second in a series of three posts regarding the Fellows' own thinking and critical pursuits withi

    What's in a Name? The Anthropocene, Part 2

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    March 16, 2018

    This year's PPEH undergraduate fellows represent a range of scholarly fields, modes of inquiry, and creative practices. Together, they have reflected on their ideas surrounding the concept of the "Anthropocene." In particular, they responded to the following prompt: How has recognition of the Anthropocene influenced your thinking about your trajectory in terms of research, scholarship, career, life? This is the second in a series of three posts regarding the Fellows' own thinking and critical pursuits within a moment of profound human imprint on our environment.
  • This year's PPEH undergraduate fellows represent a range of scholarly fields, modes of inquiry, and creative practices. Together, they have reflected on their ideas surrounding the concept of the "Anthropocene." In particular, they responded to the following prompt: How has recognition of the Anthropocene influenced your thinking about your trajectory in terms of research, scholarship, career, life? This is the first in a series of three posts regarding the Fellows' own thinking and critical pursuits within

    What's in a Name? The Anthropocene, Part 1

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    March 15, 2018

    This year's PPEH undergraduate fellows represent a range of scholarly fields, modes of inquiry, and creative practices. Together, they have reflected on their ideas surrounding the concept of the "Anthropocene." In particular, they responded to the following prompt: How has recognition of the Anthropocene influenced your thinking about your trajectory in terms of research, scholarship, career, life? This is the first in a series of three posts regarding the Fellows' own thinking and critical pursuits within a moment of profound human imprint on our environment.
  • Bethany Wiggin

    PPEH Faculty: Ben Talks

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    March 6, 2018

    Modeled after the popular TED Talks, BEN Talks give our acclaimed faculty 10 minutes each to deliver their “ideas worth sharing,” bringing to life the innovative vision and future of Penn Arts & Sciences.
  • Eve Mosher Photo

    Schuylkill Corps Questionnaire: Eve Mosher

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    February 28, 2018

    Eve Mosher is an artist, interventionist and playworker-in-training currently living and working in New York
  • Kate Farquhar Image

    Schuylkill Corps Questionnaire: Kate Farquhar

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    February 6, 2018

    Kate Farquhar is a Landscape Designer at Roofmeadow, a landscape architecture and civil engineering firm specializing in innovative green stormwater infrastructure.
  • Charles Haas image

    Schuylkill Corps Questionnaire: Charles Haas

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    January 22, 2018

    Charles Haas is the head of Drexel's Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental engineering.
  • Adapted GIF Animation from Joshua Rowley Watson, "View of the Middle and Upper Bridges on the River Schuylkill taken from the Old Waterworks Philadelphia October 5th, 1816"

    PPEH Announces New Mellon Artist-in-Residence and Call for "Ecotopian Toolkit" Contributors

    News

    January 19, 2018

    The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH) fosters interdisciplinary environmental collaboration and scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, and beyond. Among our core commitments is arts-driven inquiry into place: our campus, the City of Philadelphia, the Delaware River watershed, and beyond. Since 2014, when the Program began, we have worked with artists, alongside scientists, humanists, and civic organizations, to engage a variety of publics around environmental and climate concerns.
  • Danielle Kreeger Image

    Schuylkill Corps Questionnaire: Danielle Kreeger

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    January 11, 2018

    Danielle Kreeger is the Senior Science Director for the Partnership for Delaware Estuary
  • A researcher from Louisiana shares her Data Story with PPEH Managing Director Paul Farber. 

    Data Refuge Stories at the American Geophysical Union

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    December 19, 2017

    Data Refuge launched November 2016 in Philadelphia to draw attention to how climate denial endangers federal environmental data. Now, Data Refuge is building a storybank to document how data lives in the world – and how it connects people, places, and non-human species. 
  • The Sea of Ice, Caspar David Friedrich, 1832;The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, 2008

    Science and Ice: The Changing Sublime in the Frozen North

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    November 14, 2017

    It’s rather strange, the romance of ice. Strange that a material so hard and cold should seem so alive: so vital and dynamic, so noisy, so busy. Strange and romantic, too, that this lively ice is the pulse of the earth
  • “Firenze, che spettacolo il tramonto visto dal piazzale Michelangelo/Florence, what a show is the sunset as seen from piazzale Michelangelo.” From the website of the newspaper La Repubblica, accessed 2017. Photo by Claudio Giovannini.

    Fluvial Ecosystems: Waterly Readings of the Italian Landscape

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    October 18, 2017

    Jogging on a summer evening in Florence almost two years ago, I suddenly realized tourists sitting on the ramps of Piazzale Michelangelo were applauding the setting of the sun over the Arno river.
  • Cows fed haylage with a robot feeder. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 2014.

    Feed for Thought

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    October 11, 2017

    In his short manifesto, “The Pleasures of Eating,” Wendell Berry proposed a powerful statement: “Eating is an agricultural act.” The phrase proposes that the decisions we make when we choose and eat certain foods foster particular kinds of agricultural systems.
  • The Newkirk viaduct and Grays Ferry bridge, Schuylkill River, Philadelphia.

    Building an Understanding of the Environment

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    October 3, 2017

    Having the opportunity to work with craftspeople in India using materials such as bamboo, mud and iron -- materials with a comprehensible relationship to one’s immediate environment -- forced me to question aspects of my practice as an architect.
  • The Ganges River. Qadri, Atlaf. & AP. “Durga Puja festival on the Yamuna river, one of the rivers granted status of living human entities by the Uttarakhand court.” Found, The Guardian, 12 June 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/21/ganges-and-yamuna-rivers-granted-same-legal-rights-as-human-beings

    Reflections on Various Cases of the Legal Rights of Nature

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    June 17, 2017

    In 2016, the indigenous Maori tribe of New Zealand achieved a ground breaking victory when their sacred river—the Whanganui —was granted the same legal rights as a human being. Since then, several countries across the world have experienced similar legal and ecological victories by successfully extending anthropocentric legal protections to beings of historical, cultural, and political significance.
  • Artist rendering of Penrith Lakes, Sydney. Source: Daily Telegraph.

    Matters of Concern: What's in An Ecotopian Toolkit? Part 3

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 19, 2017

    In this series, four of the presenters for Ecotopian Toolkit for the Anthropocene reflect on a number of concerns that emerged from the conversations throughout the conference's three days. Representing different fields and academic disciplines, the four women offer various perspectives while pondering the following questions: what might an Ecotopian Toolkit look like? How do “we” build one? What tools might “we” want to include?
  • Stem Wikipedia Page

    Matters of Concern: What's in an Ecotopian Toolkit? Part 2

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    May 4, 2017

    In this series, four of the presenters for Ecotopian Toolkit for the Anthropocene reflect on a number of concerns that emerged from the conversations throughout the conference's three days. Representing different fields and academic disciplines, the four women offer various perspectives while pondering the following questions: what might an Ecotopian Toolkit look like? How do “we” build one? What tools might “we” want to include?
  • Photo Credit: Janette Kim

    Matters of Concern: What's in an Ecotopian Toolkit? Part 1

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    April 30, 2017

    In this series, four of the presenters for Ecotopian Toolkit for the Anthropocene reflect on a number of concerns that emerged from the conversations throughout the conference's three days. Representing different fields and academic disciplines, the four women offer various perspectives while pondering the following questions: what might an Ecotopian Toolkit look like? How do “we” build one? What tools might “we” want to include?
  • Maya Anjur-Dietrich, guiding participants on seeding and sorting NOAA sites. Photography by Naomi Waltham-Smith. 

    Data Rescue Philly Builds Data Refuge

    PPEH Fellows Blog

    January 15, 2017

    Updated: Over the course of the two-day DataRescue Philly event, 250+ people attended. We are very grateful for so many motivated, determined, and--above all--generous volunteers and collaborators. Thanks to you all.