PhD Courses in Denmark

The fields of Environmental Humanities and Environmental Media are defined by transdisciplinary questions and alignments: at what scale, in which sensorial contexts, through what kind of bodies (human and non-human) do we understand ecologies and broader naturalcultural contexts? Such questions concern both the practices of knowledge production - including collaborations across art, humanities, the social and the natural sciences - and the sites where knowledge emerges. How do we better consider the dilemmas of methodology and method as we approach the “how” and “where” of our research?

This PhD school challenges the still prevailing assumption that choices of methods and methodology are made after one has formulated a research problem or question.

Hence, this means not just reflecting on such methodological practices but seeing them as constitutive of “problem spaces” to use Celia Lury’s term. In this PhD School, we seek to shift from the application of methods, to material situations as articulation of problems that come to generate the methods appropriate to the situation. 

Similarly this PhD School explores how methods travel or sometimes reside on liminal zones of boundaries between knowledge formations and institutions. How are methods (re)made differently in these contact zones? 

In these times when scholars are increasingly called upon to contribute to “solutions” to urgent environmental problems, we are interested in thinking more broadly about what broad transformative approaches the humanities might bring to public spaces. How do methods lead us not only to reflect on questions of evidence-making, but also questions of worldly-engagement or even intervention? As work on participatory methods has long shown, methods can also be a political practice that involves critical reflection of both consensus and dissensus in public life. Practice-led artistic research plays a role in this broader contextualisation of environmental media and humanities in contexts beyond the university. Similarly, attention to practices and communities of knowledge are becoming increasingly central to the environmental humanities, for example, via the growing focus on “living labs” and “citizen science” in landscape contexts. Are methods for knowing also methods for engagement?

While this PhD course incorporates insights from multiple strands of Environmental Humanities and Environmental Media Studies scholarship, it is most directly inspired by spatially and materially oriented approaches. Within the context of media studies, this means an attention to mediation as an onto-epistemological process that unfolds via scientific devices and mapping techniques, rather than a primary focus on rhetorical structures. Similarly, within the context of the environmental humanities, this means closer attention to the relations between human-built infrastructures and ecological assemblages than to questions of literary or cinematic form.

Embodying its commitment to transdisciplinarity, the course welcomes PhD students from diverse academic backgrounds. Its own “method” is to work across theory and practice, exploring how they are interlinked, via lectures, reading seminars, and hands-on/field workshops that borrow from genres including architectural and spatial knowledge and the natural sciences. 

STREAM 1: Media and Aesthetics

This stream focuses on instruments and media of knowledge both in a historical sense and as core material practices for knowledge creation. We discuss media as aesthetic and epistemic devices - such as maps, images, sound objects, design operations - which both make different scales visible, even comparative, while also allowing to shift scale as part of the methodological view of focusing and articulating problem spaces. Such a double-view to instruments of knowledge and what they enable is central to the investigations and discussions this stream aims to establish.  The participants will gather conceptual tools and developed vocabulary for their method and practice alongside some experimental skills through a workshop on media and design operations of environmental mediation. We ask if there are some questions or methods that are specific to environmental or “ecomedia” research, and if there are specific sites or materials (sources) of research that are tied to building the already heterogeneous field. How do those questions, methods, and practices (including practice-led research) resonate with the broader context of environmental humanities, as well as for example the critical posthumanities? 

STREAM 2: Reading the Landscape 

This stream focuses on how concepts and methods from the natural sciences and other traditions of ecological observation might be creatively and seriously engaged within the humanities. With a focus on form and pattern, we will explore the affordances of various field-based and remote-sensing techniques. As we consider how we might engage time together with space, we will also experiment with archival methods asking how historical techniques can help us to understand more-than-human pasts. The stream will also provide a basic introduction to the field of landscape ecology, while also discussing the possibilities and limitations of “landscapes” and “patches” as units of analysis within interdisciplinary research. At the same time that we will focus on concrete techniques, such as modes of reading natural science research, we will also critically reflect on the onto-epistemological dilemmas of close collaborations with natural scientists. Participants in this stream should be aware that they will need to bring outdoor clothing and boots, as we will be taking local excursions during which we will try out specific methods.

Aim:

The course is aimed at PhD students at all points in their research, from those contemplating methods during early planning phases to those reflecting on methodological choices during dissertation writing. The course is composed of plenary activities, in which all students will participate, and two thematic strands, from which students are required to select one. We aim to establish a strong dialogue between the participants in environmental humanities and ecomedia, while also catering to subject-specific discussions around methods and their relation to transdisciplinary knowledge practices.

The students will gain:

-        A strong link to current topics in environmental humanities and media (inclusive of aesthetics) research

-        Methodological training and linking their own PhD project’s methods into a broader context of alternative methodologies and current research

-        Capacity to engage with transdisciplinarity as it is manifested in contemporary humanities and academic practice

-        Possibilities for networking and building links to peers nationally and internationally

Literature:

Tentative literature will consist of:

Celia Lury, Problem Spaces. Problem Spaces – How and Why Methodology Matters. Cambridge: Polity, 2020.

Antonio López, Adrian Ivakhiv, Stephen Rust, Miriam Tola, Alenda Y. Chang, Kiu-wai Chu (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies. New York: Routledge, 2023. Available open access.

Bubandt, Nils, Astrid Oberborbeck Andersen, and Rachel Cypher. Rubber boots methods for the Anthropocene: Doing fieldwork in multispecies worlds. University of Minnesota Press, 2023.

In addition, a package of articles and chapters relevant to each stream will be collected and distributed amongst the participants.

Target group:

At any level of PhD studies. Both internal (AU), national, and international candidates.

Form:

The summer school consists of plenary lectures by international visiting faculty, group work, student presentations and seminar feedback, as well as workshops (such as on practice-led methods).

Language:

English

Lectures:

Core Aarhus University Staff:

Professor Heather Swanson (coordinator), ikshswanson@cas.au.dk

Professor Jussi Parikka (coordinator), parikka@cc.au.dk

Dr Paolo Patelli, workshop lead, patelli@cc.au.dk

Visiting faculty:

Professor Celia Lury, Warwick University

Professor Anna Tsing, Aarhus University and University of California, Santa Cruz

Application deadline:

Please register for the course via this link https://au.phd-courses.dk/CourseCatalog/ShowCourse/1452. To apply, students are asked to submit a one-page self-introduction, including a statement about why they are interested in taking the course, how it links to their PhD project, and which of the two strands they prefer. This letter should be submitted to ceh@cas.au.dk by 15 March 2024. Students will be notified of acceptance no later than 2 April 2024.

Venue:

Campus Aarhus, Jens. Chr. Skous Vej 4, 8000 Aarhus C. - building 1483-244