At A Glance: IDK Masterclasses

Our Masterclasses are a regular part of the program and an important space for intensive learning and discussion. They bring IDK PhD students and visiting fellows in Environmental Humanities together and give time for conversations that go deeper than in many other formats.

Our Masterclasses are profoundly interdisciplinary and bring together perspectives from philosophy, history, cultural studies, and environmental studies—to name just a few. At the same time, however, they are geared towards thematic subgroups within the IDK Rethinking Environment to enable conversations about shared themes, methods, and approaches. So far, our masterclasses have discussed critiques of modern rationality, decolonial perspectives on nature(s), climate change and the Anthropocene, and questions of justice, responsibility, and social change. They also make space for thinking about alternatives: how we can learn differently, act differently, and imagine a shared ecological future?

Masterclasses are offered regularly throughout the program. Past guests have included Prof. Dr. Oliver Schlaudt, Prof. Dr. Sverker Sörlin, Dr. Johanna Weselek, Dr. Rohan D’Souza, Prof. Dr. Sean McGrath, Prof. Dr. Sule Emmanuel Egya, and Prof. Dr. Anne Rademacher. Some of them also bring perspectives from beyond academic work: Sule Emmanuel Egya, for example, is also a poet and fiction writer (publishing as E. E. Sule), and Sverker Sörlin is known not only as an environmental historian, but also as a writer and public intellectual working on climate and the Anthropocene.

In the upcoming semester, masterclasses will be held by Environmental Humanities Professor Kate Rigby and Human Geographer Dr. Maan Barua.