Where Humanities Meet Ecological Transformation.
Situated at the intersection of ecological awareness and cultural transformation, the international doctoral programme Um(Welt)Denken – The Environmental Humanities and the Ecological Transformation of Society invites a new generation of researchers to reconsider how humanity relates to its living environment. Its name, a deliberate play on words suggesting both “rethinking the environment” and “rethinking the world,” reflects a central ambition: to explore how narratives, values, and worldviews shape ecological realities. Established in 2021 and jointly hosted by the University of Augsburg’s Environmental Science Center (WZU) and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (LMU Munich), the programme has evolved into a vibrant intellectual ecosystem, fostering dialogue across disciplines and bridging fields traditionally separated by epistemic boundaries. Here, ecological questions are approached not merely as technical or political challenges, but as profound inquiries into meaning, imagination, and ethics.
Thinking with the Environment.
Within this programme, the environment is not treated as a passive subject of study but as an active partner in thought. Scholars are encouraged to engage with landscapes, materials, and communities as co-constitutive agents in knowledge production. This approach bridges the arts, humanities, and sciences through methods that are both analytical and experiential – from participatory fieldwork and cultural analysis to sensory and aesthetic exploration. Research projects examine how ecological change is felt, visualised, and narrated across different media and contexts. Through the integration of critical reflection and creative practice, they study how stories, images, and objects influence our comprehension of environmental transformation and nurture ethical awareness and responsibility.
Research Projects – A Tapestry of Perspectives:
The diversity of ongoing dissertations reflects the intellectual and aesthetic richness of the Environmental Humanities. A few examples illustrate this scope: from Glacier Poetics and Environmental Change, which explores how contemporary poetry engages with melting landscapes and the temporalities of ice; to The Global Object Ecology of Barbed Wire, tracing a material history of enclosure and extraction where landscape, conflict, and infrastructure intersect; to Reforestation and Indigenous Knowledge in the Philippines, an ethnographic study of community-based practices and ecological restoration.
Transforming Disciplines, Science, and Practice
The programme’s ambition extends beyond fostering interdisciplinary dialogue – it aims to transform the very structures of knowledge production: Disciplines, Science, and Practice. Its approach to transforming disciplines lies in cultivating a culture of collaboration across fields that have long operated in isolation. Philosophers engage with geographers, theologians with ethnologists, historians with communication scholars, each contributing distinct perspectives that challenge epistemic boundaries and open new intellectual territories. This cross-pollination of methods and ideas generates a dynamic research environment in which novel methodologies and conceptual frameworks emerge from genuine exchange.
At the same time, the programme redefines what ecological transformation means. Rather than limiting change to technological innovation or policy intervention, Um(welt)denken foregrounds its cultural and ethical dimensions. Transformation, in this view, unfolds through social movements, artistic practices, and moral imagination as much as through infrastructure or legislation. By placing the humanities at the centre of environmental discourse, the programme underscores that understanding the mechanisms of change requires an equal understanding of its meanings.
Finally, Um(welt)denken seeks to connect research with practice. Doctoral candidates collaborate with museums, NGOs, civic initiatives, and public institutions, translating theoretical insight into forms of engagement that resonate socially and ecologically. In this way, the programme fosters a generation of scholars who participate actively in shaping processes of collective transformation, bridging the gap between critical reflection and lived experience.
Why It Matters for the Anthrotopia Discourse
For Anthrotopia, Um(welt)denken exemplifies the convergence of intellectual rigor, aesthetic sensitivity, and social responsibility. The programme combines reflective research with interdisciplinary, creative approaches, showing how art, design, and material practices can expand the boundaries of environmental scholarship. By uniting intellectual curiosity with ecological care, and analytical precision with cultural imagination, it offers a model for cultivating regenerative futures: spaces where narratives, ethics, aesthetics, and practice coalesce, enabling us to envision, prototype, and enact new ways of being within a shared planetary fabric. Um(welt)denken redefines what it means to study the environment — not as a separate entity, but as a living system intimately connected to our lives.
