UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

Together with Profs Kate Rigby, Michael Bollig, Sandra Kurfürst and Peter Dannenberg, I am speaker of the international research alliance "Sharing a Planet in Peril" (SAPP).

Bringing together researchers from the University of Cologne’s Global South Studies Center and Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities with a wide network of international partners, SAPP advances actionable knowledge concerning the socio-cultural dimensions of Global Environmental Change from an Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences perspective:

Sharing a Planet in Peril Project Website

Press Release University of Cologne

The Teacher Academy for a Future in Flux (teff) is a dynamic consortium of ten leading European universities, partner schools, and government as well as further educational institutions committed to enhancing teacher education. Teff addresses the pressing need for adaptable educators prepared to navigate diverse, mobile classrooms in a rapidly changing world. Our innovative model-framework blends digital, green, diversity, inclusion, and well-being skills with a European dimension, empowering students and teachers to champion European democracy and citizenship. Through transversal, agile, and lifelong learning, teff aims to elevate the teaching profession's appeal and impact, fostering futures-literate educators equipped to tackle current and future challenges.

Website

(in collaboration with the Faculty of Mathematics and the Sciences, UoC)

In the framework of the Profile Building 2022 of the Ministry for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (Profilbildung 2022 des Ministeriums für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen), Germany, a new project on “Cultural Evolution in Changing Climate: Human and Earth System Coupled Research (HESCOR)” will be established at the University of Cologne.

HESCOR aims to develop a new science field of Human and Earth system coupled research through a cross-faculty multi-disciplinary structure (including the Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology, the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology, the Institute of Geography Education, the Mathematics Institute, and MESH). HESCOR investigates how the constellation of and interaction between the Human and Earth systems influenced human cultural evolution during the main phases of human expansion.

Project website

(in collaboration with the Universities of Klagenfurt, 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 (Klagenfurt)
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

Funded by the BMBF (01JKT2409) (01.01.2024-31.12.206)

(with Professor Christian Rolle and Dr Linus Eusterbrock, Faculty of Huamn Sciences, Ethnomusicology and Music Education)

The project explores the potential of arts and culture education in non-formal settings, conceptually and through ethnographic empirical research, in the context of ecological crises and related societal transformations, and it develops new educational materials for more sustainable learning environments.

More information can be found on the project website.

Together with a team of researchers and practitioners, 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 Cultures of Climate at UoC's Wissenschaftsforum zu Köln und Essen as well as on results from a previous project, Climate Change Literacy, funded by the VolkswagenFoundation, and it is linked with the ongoing teff academy as well as UNESCO's BRIDGES programme..

(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)

(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.): Das Solidaritätslabor. Polarisierung und Heterogenität im widerstandsbegrüßenden Englischunterricht (Sina Derichsweiler).

Band 6 (i.V.): Englisch ganz praktisch. Eine Ermutigung (Ulla Schäfer).