Research Groups

Earth, Sea, Sky: An Environmental Humanities Research Network

Faculty Coordinators: Tiffany Jo Werth (English)

“Earth, Sea, Sky” is a research network collaborating with the Oecologies Network. It has and will continue to foster new international dialogue in studies of medieval and early modern literature and visual culture. Its central aim is to examine the varied and contested premodern approaches to the natural world, as well as how this premodern archive resonates with contemporary concerns around environmental degradation and global warming. This research network is a multi-year, ongoing project begun in 2019. It began in 2019 with a study of “Earth” in a symposium held at Oxford University. It next turned to an analysis of human relationships to the “Sea” and coastal environments in a series of virtual reading groups and a concluding symposia sponsored by a grant from the University of California Humanities Institute (2020-2022). Next up, the working group will be exploring “Sky,” with support from the University of British Columbia. To be added to the ListServ, please contact Kirsten Schuhmacher (kschuhmacher@ucdavis.edu)

Early Science Workshop

Faculty Coordinators: Colin Webster (Classics) and Daniel Stolzenberg (History)

The Early Science Workshop brings together faculty, graduate students, and other members of the UC Davis community, who share an interest in the study of science, medicine, and technology from antiquity through the eighteenth century. In keeping with premodern categories and recent theoretical trends, we take “science” to include not only the study of nature, but also other branches of learning. We are interested in the history of knowledge, expansively construed—technologies as well as texts, practices as well as ideas, artisanal traditions as well as learned systems, Western as well as non-Western cultures, and topics that transcend such dichotomies. The Workshop holds seminars for the discussion of works-in-progress and organizes special events with scholars from outside UCD. To learn more about the workshop, please be in touch with Colin Webster (cwebster@ucdavis.edu).