The Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities

The Greenhouse is an environmental humanities research center at the University of Stavanger. It supports a growing community of academics who use history, literature, media, religion, philosophy and art to understand how people relate to nature and the environment. As an intellectual meeting place, we want to create connections between academics, museums, special interest groups and the public who are interested in environmental issues.

In the same way as plants sprout and grow in a greenhouse, the Greenhouse is a place where researchers can be grow and contribute to society. Researchers in The Greenhouse are challenged to become leaders in positive, knowledge-based changes to the environment. As a metaphor, The Greenhouse reminds us that we are sitting in a planetary greenhouse which is at risk of overheating. Research carried out in The Greenhouse takes up this and other environmental issues from a humanistic perspective with a view to engaging a broader public in these issues.

The Greenhouse represents both the environment as an object of study and the ways to cultivate a scholarly environment to study it. The environment exists at the junction of nature, technology, and social structures. Research in the Greenhouse also sits at this intersection, drawing on a variety of disciplines to grow new academic and social connections with nature.

All environmental humanities are welcome within the Greenhouse initiative. The current members are particularly strong in the interplay of nature and technology in making environments, the role of the digital in creating new natures, the use of history in framing environmentalist action, and posthuman/more-than-human worlds.

The Greenhouse cultivates environmental humanities research at the University of Stavanger and aims to shape the future of environmental humanities by creating research projects, actively pursuing funding for guest researchers, and by developing workshops, conferences and other events to promote environmental humanities.