The history of sustainability has been the history of fragmentation: science and the humanities, their generation and our generation, abstraction and action. The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities seeks to shape the new normal by cultivating curiosity, exploring emotion, and igniting innovation. We are a collective of scholars, students, artists, scientists, and educators whose mission is to generate local and global awareness and engagement in the emergent area of the environmental humanities. We are storytellers, weaving the common roots of our natural heritage into an interdisciplinary narrative. We aim to be a bridge between islands, a thread among branches, a lab for reflection and action. Our story:
Born of students' desires for a more permanent place for environmental dialogue, the PPEH was founded in 2014 by the combined forces of Penn professor Bethany Wiggin and student Leah Davidson to create a fresh and unique forum for work on environmental issues. With start-up funding from the Green Campus Partnership to pay for research fellowships and growing rapidly ever since, PPEH fosters collaborations at Penn and other Philadelphia-based partners, in the Delaware and Schuylkill River Valleys, along the eastern seaboard and across the globe. You are invited to visit the Lab, design a Project, work as a Fellow, and co-author our Story by getting involved.
