{"id":97855,"date":"2024-12-04T12:22:32","date_gmt":"2024-12-04T17:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=97855"},"modified":"2024-12-04T15:44:44","modified_gmt":"2024-12-04T20:44:44","slug":"environmental-humanities-to-take-symposium-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2024\/12\/environmental-humanities-to-take-symposium-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental humanities to take symposium spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

The relationship between humanities scholarship, ecology and the environment will be front and centre at an upcoming event hosted by the Faculty of Humanities.<\/p>\n

Taking place Monday, Dec. 9, the biannual Humanities Research Institute (HRI) Symposium<\/a> will shed light on environmental humanities at the University and beyond, including a new minor open to all Brock students<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Vlossak, Associate Professor of History and Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, said the symposium will highlight the research endeavours of faculty members and graduate students working in this important field.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresentations will explore methodologies and teaching practices to address complex environmental issues,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Daniel Samson, Associate Professor of History, said environmental humanities is a sprawling, transdisciplinary field drawing together established areas such as cultural geography and environmental history alongside newer disciplines like ecocriticism and political ecology.<\/p>\n

\u201cScientific fields are also interested in human roles in nature and exploring the relationship between nature and culture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the symposium, Samson will share his perspective on how he teaches environmental humanities through the lens of digital public history and 17th- and 18th-century Acadian and Mi\u2019kmaw stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy students are examining basic questions of resource extraction and sustainability. We can learn important lessons from historic populations on how to live more sustainably by, for example, learning how they produced food with lower energy use, made use of nutrient-rich saltmarshes or maintained healthy soils with manure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Samson said, the costs of sustainability need to be addressed. In the 18th-century colonial world of Isle Saint-Jean, present day Prince Edward Island, putting cattle on those marshlands meant destroying Indigenous people\u2019s food resources such as eels and waterfowl.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnvironmental research usually poses scientific questions, but those questions are seldom free of human roles and human understandings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Elysia French, Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Arts (VISA), said environmental humanities has been building bridges between academic disciplines \u2014specifically arts and science\u2014 for decades.<\/p>\n

These bridges, French said, have paved the way for collaborative responses to pressing environmental and social issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe interdisciplinary nature of environmental humanities facilitates new and exciting conversations and directs attention, both within and beyond the academy, toward critical environmental happenings shaping our world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

At the symposium, French will introduce her ongoing and collaborative project, Ecologies in Practice, which uses creative research methodologies such as arts-based work and podcasting to encourage greater public awareness about environmental issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis area of knowledge matters as it supports collaboration and alternative methods of research-creation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The symposium runs from 9 a.m. to noon on Dec. 9 in Sankey Chamber and includes the following presentations:<\/p>\n