From the Anthropause to the Pandemic Turn: Emerging Directions in the Environmental Humanities in the Covid-19 Era

Abstract

This article outlines current developments in the Environmental Humanities, abbreviated as EH, that underscore its diversity and timeliness as scholars from manifold disciplines turn progressively more to human-nature issues in the Anthropocene epoch. Emerging in the last decade in particular, the twelve specializations outlined in this article are animal and plant studies; Arctic and Antarctic humanities, Asian environmental humanities, blue humanities, emergency humanities, empirical ecocriticism, energy humanities, extinction studies, medicalenvironmental humanities, paleoenvironmental humanities, Symbiocene studies, and wetland humanities. On the one hand, new areas such as the emergency humanities and medicalenvironmental humanities have gained momentum in response to the Covid-19 pandemic beginning in early 2020. On the other, some EH areas focus on alternatives to Anthropocene malaise and possibilities for human-nature justice. Understood as a transdisciplinary metafield—one that encompasses a spectrum of fields and tracks fluidly between disciplines—the Environmental Humanities aims to invigorate collective biocultural change and formulate radical approaches to sustainability at a time of rapid ecological decline worldwide.

Keywords

• anthropocene
• deep time
• environmental humanities
• pandemic turn
• transdisciplinary environmental research