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Environmental Humanities

Students explore what it means to be human in a time of rapid global environmental change. Understanding human relations with their environments can be developed by the study of history, literature, art, architecture, film studies, philosophy, and anthropology. 

Interdisciplinary study in these fields and topics is facilitated by the Yale Environmental Humanities Initiative that provides a forum for faculty and student scholarly engagement in these fields. 

  • Literary and artistic expressions of human-environment relations.
  • Changing literary meanings of nature, wildness, purity, contamination, and restoration.
  • Influence of nature on literature, art, film, and photography.
  • Portrayals of wilderness in art history.
  • Historical perspectives on human attemps to control nature
  • Representation of oceans in art history
  • Nature’s association with freedom and its
    degradation.
  •  Architectural reflections of underlying ecology in urban areas.
  • Relations between new technology adoption and environmental change.
  • Nature’s relations to spirituality.

- Bachelor of Science (BS): Emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to environmental humanities
- Bachelor of Arts (BA): Combines scientific understanding with humanities perspectives on
environmental issues

  • Environmental education and interpretation
  • Museum curation and exhibition design
  • Environmental journalism and media production
  • Cultural resource management
  • Environmental policy and advocacy
  • Sustainable design and architecture
  • Academic research and teaching
Suggested Courses Student Highlights

Alumni Stories

Suggested Coursework

Students in the Environmental Humanities Concentration must complete six courses of their choosing related to environmental humanities.

See our list of suggested courses

Related Organizations

  • Climate and History Initiative

    Yale historians and scholars pursuing research and writing efforts related to the history of climate and society the history of energy systems.

  • Environmental Humanities

    Humanities scholars have an opportunity to reshape how we think about environmental problems and “the environment” itself.