Developing the Public Environmental Humanities: Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons

The environmental humanities are a dynamic and growing field of scholarly inquiry that grapple with many of the key challenges of our time. Over the past decade, in particular, the field has developed a strong emphasis on public-facing scholarship. However, while that public scholarship has grown steadily, scholarly analysis and reflection on this work has not kept pace. This article offers a timely discussion of the ‘public environmental humanities’ as a field of engaged, experimental, research practice. It explores how, where, and when this area of scholarship began to emerge, the diverse goals, formats, and modes of public-engagement that are developing, and provides an overview of some of the key challenges and opportunities in this space.