Networks
At the Heisenberg professorship of Global Environmental History and Environmental Humanities we have research relationships to the following networks:
Network Environmental History
The Um-Welt (german word play focusing the environment in our surroundings) is around humans every day-to-day life. It is over, under, around and in us. In the environmental history, it counts as a historical basic category and opened the research of past attributions of meaning, events and structures of the ever changing relationship between humans and the rest of nature.
Environmental history at the university of Augsburg reaches from the antiquity to the present, from the historical recording of climate change, eating habits and contamination to the ecological economics of the Enlightenment. It is equally regional and global.
The Network of Environmental History regularly meets at the Institute of European Cultural History (IEK). If you are interested in the historical exploration of the interrelationship between humans and the rest of nature, you are very welcome.
Reading Group Environmental History
The Reading Group Environmental History meets two times per semester to discuss classic or recent texts in environmental history. The event is open to anyone interested. Disscussions will be held in English, and the readings will be in English as well. All materials are available on DigiCampus under the course "Environmental History Reading Group."
This summer semester, the reading group will meet on the 15.05.2026 (2pm-4pm, Text: Emily O'Gorman, Wetlands in a Dry Land: More-Than-Human Histories of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin (Melbourne University Press, 2024)) and on the 16.07.2026 (3pm-5pm, Text: Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II (Harper & Row, 1972)). The Meetings will take place in the Büro-Center-Messe (BCM), Alter Postweg 101, Room 9019.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Jan Brinkmann ( jan.brinkmann@uni-a.de, Room 218 WZU) or Harrison Croft ( harrison.croft@uni-a.de, Room 9017 BCM).
International Doctorate Program "Rethinking Environment"
In German, Um(Welt)Denken is a wordplay combining the term “environment” (Umwelt) with the verb “rethinking” (umdenken). The project’s name comes from the need to rethink human relationships with the world we, as a species, inhabit. A partnership between Augsburg University and the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, the international doctorate program (Internationales Doktorand:innenkolleg – IDK) Rethinking Environment brings together young scholars and experienced experts from various fields to explore new ways of approaching the ecological transformation of society.
The international doctorate program "Rethinking Environment: The Environmental Humanities and the Ecological Transformation of Society" is promoted by the Elitenetzwerk Bayern.
Research Project "Deadly Dreams"
The Deadly Dreams research project is a transdisciplinary social and cultural historical network studying environmental poisons in everyday life, between 1850 and 2024. They study peoples’ cultural relation to environmental poisons over time, and at a variety of arenas within private, professional, and political life.
Deadly Dreams is an environmental humanities research network, headed by professor May-Brith Ohman Nielsen, who is professor for history at the university of Agder and professor for historical didactics at the university of Karlstad.
The primary objective of the Deadly Dreams research project is to contribute with new and advanced knowledge from the humanities and social sciences that can help historicise, understand, and handle the challenges posed by the ubiquitous environmental poisons. The research network includes more than 11 scientific institutions and more than 20 researchers. Together they represent 14 different fields of research.
Andrea von Braun Foundation
The Andrea von Braun Foundation is committed to the mutual reinforcement of people and nature, as well as the proteciton of nature, with a primary focus on neglected ecosystems and projects. Professor Simone M. Müller is currently the Chair of the Board of Currators.
To achieve this, the foundation supports projects in ecologically vulnerable areas. These include, for example, nature-based environmental and climate protection, as well as regional and international practical projects. Equally important is interdisciplinary work, which aims to bring togheter different disciplines and perspectives.
Northern Borders Project
The Northern Borders Project is rooted in the Environmental Humanities and examines the emergence of borders in the northern polar region from the 18th century to the present day. It focuses in particular on the socio-environmental context. The project also highlights the impact that these borders have had in the past and continue to have in the present on the life in the region.
To achieve these goals, the project builds on existing research in the fields of environmental history and historical geography and seeks to establish close, interdisciplinary collaboration with communities and institutions based in the regions under study.
Dr. Andreas Mentrup-Womelsdorf, post-doctoral researcher at the chair for Global Environmental History and Environmental Humanities, is part of the Project, which is located in the NiCHE (Network in Canadian History & Environment).