
A peach and a prickly orange fruit with vine leaves and tendrils
The Umwelt Center hosts an annual workshop and a virtual lecture series, produces a peer-reviewed edited volume, appoints an annual post-doctoral fellow, offers funding opportunities for research projects, hosts guest lecturers, provides stipends for graduate students pursuing internships in Environmental Humanities, and will also feature a graduate certificate program. The Center will also launch community partnerships to bring together German Studies, Environmental Humanities, and local and global sustainability efforts. For more details on recent and upcoming events and talks, see below!
Recent and upcoming talks

All too human? What tiny houses and a 19th-century Austrian mansion say about life in a time of ecological crisis.
Katra Byram, October 19, 2023

The “Greenhorn Gaze”: The Construction of the Indigenous World in German “Indianerliteratur.”
Marcel Foerster, October 7, 2023

The Melting Sublime: Iceberg Aesthetics from Georg Forster to Ólafur Elíasson.
Matthew H. Birkhold, September 22, 2023
Recent and upcoming talks

All too human? What tiny houses and a 19th-century Austrian mansion say about life in a time of ecological crisis.
Katra Byram, October 19, 2023

The “Greenhorn Gaze”: The Construction of the Indigenous World in German “Indianerliteratur.”
Marcel Foerster, October 7, 2023

The Melting Sublime: Iceberg Aesthetics from Georg Forster to Ólafur Elíasson.
Matthew H. Birkhold, September 22, 2023

Roundtable at the German Studies Association
Oct. 27, 2025; co-organized with the Environmental Studies Network

Roundtable at the German Studies Association
Oct. 27, 2025; co-organized with the Environmental Studies Network
Recent publications
Recent publications
Guest Lectures

Gabriele Dürbeck: Natural-Cultural Memory in the Anthropocene
April 2025 Virtual Lecture

Alyssa Battistoni: Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature
Oct. 3, 2025; Book Talk, co-sponsored by the Umwelt Center, the Political Theory Workshop, and the the Environmental History Initiative
Guest Lectures

Gabriele Dürbeck: Natural-Cultural Memory in the Anthropocene
April 2025 Virtual Lecture

Alyssa Battistoni: Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature
Oct. 3, 2025; Book Talk, co-sponsored by the Umwelt Center, the Political Theory Workshop, and the the Environmental History Initiative