University of Cologne

(in collaboration with the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield, and Duisburg-Essen)

The interdisciplinary project responds to calls for more humanities research on climate change by developing an innovative methodological approach to cultural models of climate futures. It focuses especially on the topic of intergenerational justice. The project group brings together literary studies, linguistics, science and technology studies and literature pedagogy to investigate how different texts – cultural forms such as literature, social media, and literature reception in educational contexts – move between seemingly neutral climate facts (“models of”) and normative social values (“models for”). The project is framed by interdisciplinary model theory, which conceives of models as representations of reality that reduce complexity and serve specific purposes. Its approach to climate models (1) understands qualitative cultural modelling of climate change as necessary complement to the dominant quantitative scientific climate models, and (2) analyses the intertwining of descriptive and normative components in climate debates. The closely related sub-projects examine debates of climate change and intergenerational justice in Anglophone dramas and essays (WP 1), in social media (WP 2) and in the reception and communication of literature in criticism and education (WP 3). The project’s key objectives are:

1. to investigate how different kinds of texts engage in the cultural modelling of (un)just futures;

2. develop an interdisciplinary approach to cultural climate models that will be of wide benefit to researchers.

Julia Hoydis (Cologne)
Roman Bartosch (Cologne)
Carolin Schwegler (Cologne)
Jens Martin Gurr (Duisburg-Essen)
David Higgins (Leeds)
Warren Pearce (Sheffield)

Further information: https://cultural-climate-models.org/

February 2023 - February 2026

As co-speaker of the project group "Cultures of Climate" (Wissenschaftsforum zu Köln und Essen), I am developing a cross-cutting literacy project on climate change literature for young learners of diverse abilities. This includes building a cli-fi library and training modules for teachers as well as research on the selection and assessment of picture- and storybooks in the context of climate action and quality education. The project draws on prior work in the project group as well as results from a previous project, Climate Change Literacy, funded by the VolkswagenFoundation.

More info: Wissenschaftsforum zu Köln und Essen and Cultures of Climate project group

Seed funding of the University of Cologne

(with Professor Sebastian Barsch, History Education (PI), and Professor Wiebke Dannecker, German Literature Pedagogy)

The project investigates the effectiveness of pedagogic measures in the context of sustainability education in the field of German, English, and History Education. It will focus on the extent to which both historical and narrative competencies are necessary for learners to grapple with the concept of the Anthropocene and what the investigators are calling (deep-)time awareness. The project includes the development of teaching materials in close collaboration with teachers and schools as well as an explorative study on assessment and evaluation.

(in collaboration with the Universities of Nantes (PI), Birmingham, Florence, Leiden and Linnaeus)

The project wants to position EUniWell as a trailblazer for a European space of teaching in EH to foster the well-being and empowerment of students, citizens, and communities in a new climactic regime. It recognizes the centrality of shared curricula development through international collaboration as a pivot for change via research and practice. Specifically, it will develop a rotating field study summer school for in-depth engagements with transnational questions for a sustainable Europe conceptualised and conducted by involved Universities and local communities. It will be an integral part of a transnational EHWell teaching module.

Funded by EUniWell Seedfunding and Research Incubator Grant.

March 2022-February 2023: Mediating Socioecological Emergencies (lead: Linneaus University)
September 2023: Across Nature and Culture - The City of Florence as a Case Study for Natural-Cultural Conservation and Preservation Issues (Summer School; lead: University of Florence)
November 2023-May 2024: Human and Non-Human Well-being in the Anthropocene City: Guidelines for Interdisciplinary Research and Sustainable Policies (lead: University of Florence)

The project investigates cultures of death and imaginaries as well as practices of dying in light of the existential threats of climate catastrophe and biodiversity loss and explores the pedagogic implications for a sustainability education in times of large-scale species extinction and the pre-trauma of run-away climate change.

Output (selection):

Research article: "Dying to Learn: Teaching Human-Animal Studies in an Age of Extinction". Multispecies Futures. New Approaches to Teaching Human-Animal Studies. Eds. Andreas Hübner, Micha Edlich and Maria Moss. Berlin: Neofelis, 2022.

Keynote presentation: “Teaching Ani­ma­li­ty in the Face of Extinc­tion” (Teaching Human-Animal Studies, Leuphana University Lüneburg, 2020).

Conference presentation: “‘to die will be an awfully big adventure’? Death, Extinction, and the Limits of Competence Orientation” (Taboo Topics in Foreign Language Education, Würzburg University, 2020).

Lecture Seminar: “The Pandemic Imagination: Reading and Teaching Fictions of Crisis" (University of Cologne, Winter 2020)

Lecture Series (with Ute Planert): "a.r.t.e.s. moriendi" (as part of the a.r.t.e.s. Research Master programme) (University of Cologne, Summer 2021)

The project is associated with MESH, the University of Cologne's research hub for Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities.

(mit Prof Andreas Köpfer, Freiburg)

www.dilikus.de

Die Reihe „Diversitätsorientierte Literatur-, Kultur- und Sprachdidaktik“ (Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier) stellt sowohl  anwendungsbezogene Forschung der Schulentwicklung und Unterrichtsforschung in Zeiten erhöhter bzw. verstärkt wahrgenommener Heterogenität als auch für Grundlagenforschung in den Bereichen der Inter-/Transkulturalität vor, der Mehrsprachigkeit und einer Pädagogik der Vielfalt und Anerkennung, die sich dezidiert mit den Implikationen für und Möglichkeiten der fachdidaktischen Praxis auseinandersetzt.

Band 1: Inklusion und Nachhaltigkeit (Hg. Roman Bartosch und Andreas Köpfer).

Band 2: Language Awareness bei mehrsprachigen Kindern (Johanna Jördening).

Band 3: Towards Transformative Literature Pedagogy (Hg. Roman Bartosch).

Band 4: Inklusion und Deutsch als Zweitsprache als Querschnittsaufgabe in der Lehrer*innenbildung (Hg. Anna Grosshauser, Andreas Köpfer und Hanna Siegismund).

Band 5 (i.V.): Englisch ganz praktisch. Eine Ermutigung (Ulla Schäfer).