Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities is one of the most dynamic interdisciplinary areas of research in the Department and it is also one of the newest, with scholars working in a variety of areas such as Science Studies (investigating areas such as quantum theory, cognitive ethology, theoretical biology, evolutionary theory, epigenetics, and immunology), Environmental Justice and Environmental Racism, Climate Change and the Anthropocene, Animal Studies, Bioethics, Environmental Regionalism, and others. Faculty working in the cluster include Timothy Morton (19th Century British literature and Culture, particularly poetry, Buddhism, Object Oriented Ontology, Contemporary Art and Music, Poetry and Poetics), Cary Wolfe (Modernism and Contemporary Literature, especially poetry, Animal Studies, Systems Theory, Pragmatism, Posthumanism, Modern and Contemporary Art), Scott Derrick (Gender and Sexuality, 19th Century U.S. Literature), Krista Comer (Western U.S. Literature, Border Studies, the Global West, Popular Culture, Feminism, Public Humanities), and Emily Houlik-Ritchey (Medieval and Early Modern Literature, including Spain and France, Gender and Sexuality, Transnational Studies). Recent and current dissertation projects include “ecotechnology” and ecology in a comparative U.S. and Canada Frame, “toxic networks,” systems discourse, and 20th century literature, Chicano/a environmental writing since 1848, postcolonial landscapes, and invaginated cartographies.

Faculty and graduate students in the cluster regularly participate in conferences such as the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, the Modern Language Association, the Comparative Literature Association, the American Literature Association, the American Studies Association, the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900, the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, the Western Literature Association, and many others, and several students in the cluster have organized entire panel slates in these venues. Recent graduates working in the cluster have secured tenure-track and postdoctoral fellowship positions at the University of Wollongong (Australia), Dartmouth College, and Columbia University.

Students and faculty working in the cluster have published in a wide range of journals including South Atlantic Review, Exemplaria, New Literary History, American Literature, American Literary History, New Geographies, New German Critique, PMLA, Minnesota Review, Cultural Critique, ISLE, Configurations, Journal of Posthumanist Studies, Angelaki, Substance, Parallax, Environmental Humanities, Environmental Philosophy, and Journal of Western Literature, among others.