Focused on Planetary Wellbeing, the Cologne BRIDGES Thematic Hub addresses the interconnections amongst human health and wellbeing, climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity conservation and ecological regeneration. Bringing the insights and understandings of the environmental humanities to the One Health concept, the Hub approaches wellbeing from a perspective that prioritises multispecies conviviality and ecological flourishing in a shared Planet Earth for present and future generations.

The BRIDGES Thematic Hub for Planetary Wellbeing is anchored in two leading research institutions at the University of Cologne (UoC): the research hub for Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities (MESH) and the Global South Studies Center (GSSC). It is also supported by the Global Responsibility Unit at UoC and the European University for Wellbeing (EUniWell).

Situated within a capacious network of European research partners, but extending its scope and reach to include collaborators from the Global South in order to advance North-South-South eco-humanities interventions, the Hub explores and connects diverse concepts, methodologies and policies connected to Planetary Wellbeing, including intergenerational justice and mental health, art and literature, spirituality and value systems, indigenous and traditional knowledge systems, foresight and futures thinking, as well as discursive and other practices of more-than-human conviviality and collaboration.

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

Further information: Project Website

February 2023 - October 2026

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

(with Professor Christian Rolle and Dr Linus Eusterbrock, Faculty of Human 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 and on the KuBi-Meta-Site.

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 

1) 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 (together with UFlorence) and

2) an international co-teaching and public humanities initiative, My Climate Story (with UPenn, UBristol and UGävle). 

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 the teff academy and is linked with UNESCO's BRIDGES programme.

Eco-RefugLit examines how contemporary literature in English represents and problematises the nexus between climate change, environmental degradation and migration. The project explores the cultural, ethical, and narrative dimensions of human and non-human displacement in a context of global ecological transformation. This research is funded by the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) through the 2024 Knowledge Generation Projects call (PID2024-157339NB-I00) and is based at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Faculty of Philology). The project supports fundamental research on climate-related mobility, environmental humanities, and contemporary literature in English within an international and interdisciplinary framework.

Role: Work Team

(2025-2028)

More information can be found on the website.