Keywords: Ecocriticism - Cultural Studies - Biodiversity

Affiliation: University of Fribourg (Switzerland)

Claudia Keller is a scholar of German studies and an assistant professor at the University of Fribourg Environmental Sciences and Humanities. Her research explores the relationship between nature and culture from both historical and contemporary perspectives, combining approaches from ecocriticism, cultural theory, ethics and aesthetics, environmental history, and (political) ecology.

In her recent work, she focuses on cultural perceptions of biodiversity, with particular attention to how narratives about environmental challenges shape societal responses as well as individual actions. She is currently working on two research projects. In the Swiss National Science Foundation–funded project Narrating Variety. Biodiversity as a Paradigm of Transformation (2026–2030), she conducts a systematic analysis of how biodiversity is narrated, represented, and legitimized in science, politics, and culture, with a particular emphasis on literature in the German-speaking context. In a subproject of the National Research Programme NRP 82 Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, entitled Promoting Biodiversity by Addressing Environmental Disvalue Narratives, she and her colleagues investigate public responses to conflicts surrounding biodiversity conservation in wetlands, such as mosquito outbreaks, flooding, or damage caused by beavers. The overarching aim of her work is to apply insights from narrative analysis to foster more effective biodiversity communication and to promote constructive dialogue about both the opportunities and challenges of biodiversity.

www.claudia-keller.ch https://www.unifr.ch/directory/en/people/446113/6ad3f