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 9 February 2026

Disease and the Dead Body in Britain in the Long-Eighteenth Century
Date: 9 February 2026, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker : Eleanor Kerfoot (Oxford)
Venue: Radcliffe Observatory,
Venue Details: Room 00.063 (ground floor), Schwarzman Centre
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Tuesday 10 February 2026

“God forebede that a wylde Yrishe wyrlynge shulde be chosene for to be there kynge”: Gaelic Recovery in a North Atlantic Context, c.1350-c.1550
Date: 10 February 2026, 14:00 - 15:30
Speaker : Simon Egan (Queen's University Belfast)
Venue: St John's College, St Giles OX1 3JP
Venue Details: New Seminar Room
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Thursday 12 February 2026

Publishing the Environmental Humanities
Date: 12 February 2026, 12:00 - 13:30
Speaker s: Professor Jamie Lorimer (University of Oxford), Professor Amanda Power (University of Oxford), Rebecca Brennan (Princeton University Press), Dr Anna Henderson (ARC Humanities Press)
Venue Details: Seminar Room 63, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Monday 16 February 2026

Chronic Constitutions: Experts, Disease Risks and Remaking Indian Bodies in Post Colonial India (1940-70s)
Date: 16 February 2026, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker : Kavita Sivaramakrishnan (Columbia)
Venue: Radcliffe Observatory,
Venue Details: Room 00.063 (ground floor), Schwarzman Centre
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Tuesday 17 February 2026

Maritime Risk Management and Aequitas: the long life of the principle of General Average
Date: 17 February 2026, 14:00 - 15:30
Speaker : Maria Fusaro (Exeter)
Venue: St John's College, St Giles OX1 3JP
Venue Details: New Seminar Room
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Thursday 19 February 2026

Timely Courts and Immediate Responses: Waste Management as a Temporal Issue in Late Medieval England
Date: 19 February 2026, 12:30 - 13:30
Speaker : Louis James Henry (University of Stavanger/KCL)
Venue: Radcliffe Observatory,
Venue Details: Room 20.421, History Hub, Schwarzman Centre
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Monday 23 February 2026

The Mental After-Care Association, Recovery and Psychotherapy
Date: 23 February 2026, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker : Hannah Blythe (Leeds)
Venue: Radcliffe Observatory,
Venue Details: Room 00.063 (ground floor), Schwarzman Centre
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Tuesday 24 February 2026

The Mortar Wreck: A Thirteenth Century shipwreck outside of Poole Harbour, Dorset
Date: 24 February 2026, 14:00 - 15:30
Speaker : Tom Cousins (Bournemouth)
Venue: St John's College, St Giles OX1 3JP
Venue Details: New Seminar Room
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Monday 2 March 2026

Popular Science Writing: Literary Approaches
Date: 2 March 2026, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker : Michael Whitworth (Oxford)
Venue: Radcliffe Observatory,
Venue Details: Room 00.063 (ground floor), Schwarzman Centre
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Tuesday 3 March 2026

NO SEMINAR
Date: 3 March 2026, 14:00 - 15:30
Speaker : No seminar
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Thursday 5 March 2026

Correcting the Climate: Jules Verne’s Planetary Apocalypse
Date: 5 March 2026, 12:00 - 13:30
Speaker s: Dr Sebastian Egholm Lund (University of Oxford), Claire Qu (University of Oxford)
Venue Details: Seminar Room 63, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Burning Issues: Fire Management in Metropolitan Los Angeles, 1892-1938
Date: 5 March 2026, 14:00 - 15:30
Speaker : Jessica Chirboga (Oxford)
Venue: Radcliffe Observatory,
Venue Details: Room 20.421, History Hub, Schwarzman Centre
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Monday 9 March 2026

The quantification of famine in the British Empire, 1770-1801
Date: 9 March 2026, 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker : John Lidwell-Durnin (Exeter)
Venue: Radcliffe Observatory,
Venue Details: Room 00.063 (ground floor), Schwarzman Centre
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

Tuesday 10 March 2026

Popes, Ambassadors and Falcons: Trade and Diplomacy between Latin Europe and the Mamluk Sultanate in the Fourteenth Century
Date: 10 March 2026, 14:00 - 15:30
Speaker : Mike Carr (Edinburgh)
Venue: St John's College, St Giles OX1 3JP
Venue Details: New Seminar Room
Organisers: TBA
Hosts: TBA

This list contains talks from the following series:
Environmental History Working Group
Environmental Humanities Research Hub
Europe in the Later Middle Ages
History of Science, Medicine, Technology, and Environment Work in Progress Group
Oxford Centre for the History of Science Medicine & Technology (OCHSMT) Seminars and Events
TORCH Environmental Humanities Research Hub