Environmental History
Description: Environmental history investigates humans’ changing ecological entanglements over time. Its practitioners work over different time periods and geographical regions and draw on methodological ideas and practices from various scholarly traditions such as history, archaeology, geography, visual art and the natural sciences.

This interdisciplinary approach is what makes environmental history such an exhilarating field, yet it can also be what divides it. Environmental historians often belong to different departments and faculties, and at Oxford they are yet to share a sub-institutional affiliation. Hence, they are not always informed of relevant work done by their colleagues within the same University.

The Oxford Environmental History Network wishes to foster a virtual community of environmental historians in Oxford. The aim of the network is threefold:


To connect researchers confronting similar conceptual and methodological challenges, even if working across different regions and time periods
To showcase environmental history research being undertaken at Oxford and elsewhere
To publicise relevant events and opportunities occurring both at Oxford as well as internationally

Talks:

Monday 28 April 2025

Cressida Jervis Read Seminar - Along the Thread of the Mosquito Ovary: Apprehending Malarias Lost and Regained
Date: 28 April 2025, 16:00 - 17:00
Speaker : Ann Kelly (Oxford)
Venue: History Faculty, George Street OX1 2RL
Venue Details: Lecture Theatre, and online via Zoom
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Monday 12 May 2025

Science in Cinders: Destruction in scientific correspondences of the long eighteenth century
Date: 12 May 2025, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker : Zoe Screti (Oxford)
Venue Details: Maison Française d’Oxford, 2-10 Norham Road, Oxford OX2 6SE
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Monday 19 May 2025

Energy, Environment and Society: In conversation with Dr Matthew N Eisler
Date: 19 May 2025, 11:00 - 12:30
Speaker s: Dr Matthew N Eisler (University of Strathclyde), Chair: Dr Catherine M Jackson (OCHSMT, Oxford)
Venue: History Faculty, George Street OX1 2RL
Venue Details: Colin Matthew Room
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Paths to ecological thinking: Reflections on situating social relations in energy and environmental context
Date: 19 May 2025, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker : Matthew Eisler (Strathclyde)
Venue Details: Maison Française d’Oxford, 2-10 Norham Road, Oxford OX2 6SE
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Monday 9 June 2025

Learning and practising astronomy and astrology in fourteenth-century Paris and Oxford
Date: 9 June 2025, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker : Laure Miolo (Oxford)
Venue Details: Maison Française d’Oxford, 2-10 Norham Road, Oxford OX2 6SE
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Monday 16 June 2025

From Skull Science to Biometrics: The Making of the Modern Statistical Identity (Hybrid)
Date: 16 June 2025, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker : Iris Clever (Chicago)
Venue Details: Maison Française d’Oxford, 2-10 Norham Road, Oxford OX2 6SE, and online via Zoom
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

This list contains talks from the following series:
Oxford Centre for the History of Science Medicine & Technology (OCHSMT) Seminars and Events
Workshop in the History of Science, Medicine, Technology, and Environment