This project investigates how culture models climate futures. It brings together literary studies, linguistics, science and technology studies, and literature pedagogy to analyse how texts move between seemingly neutral climate facts (“models of”) and normative social values (“models for”). It understands the qualitative cultural modelling of climate change as an important complement to dominant quantitative scientific climate models. It comprises three work packages focused on climate futures and intergenerational justice in different kinds of texts: dramas and essays (WP 1); social media (WP 2); and pedagogical (WP 3).
Project outcomes include open-access publications, and a website documenting the research process and disseminating results as a virtual exhibition. The team are based in the UK, German, and Austria and represent a range of complementary specialisms: David Higgins (PI UK) in culture and climate change; Julia Hoydis (PI Austria) in risk theory and climate change narratives; Warren Pearce in digital methods of image analysis in social media; Carolin Schwegler in multi-modal sustainability communication; Roman Bartosch in educational research on the modelling of environmental literacy; and Jens Gurr in interdisciplinary model theory. The website is curated and designed by the project’s artistic director, Jasmijn Visser.
The project brings together research centres at the
Universities of Cologne (Multidisciplinary
Environmental Studies in the Humanities – MESH),
Duisburg-Essen (Futures Research in the Humanities),
Klagenfurt (Cluster Sustainability),
Leeds (Priestley International Centre for Climate),
and Sheffield (Digital Society Network).
The project is funded by the AHRC (UK), the DFG
(Germany), and the FLF (Austria).
funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
University of Graz
Department of English, Full Professor of English Literature
Her research is situated at the intersection of literary and cultural studies and the Environmental Humanities, with a focus on literature and risk theory, climate change narratives and future-making across different media. Other areas of interest are the English novel and narratology, posthumanism, postcolonial studies, and transcultural adaptation studies.
In the project, she will work with David Higgins on WP1 to examine focuses on textual models of climate futures in Anglophone dramas and personal essays. It explores especially how these genres model intergenerational justice and issues such as reproductive futures and relationships between parents and children.
funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)
University of Duisburg-Essen Department of Anglophone Studies, Full Professor of British and Anglophone Literature and Culture
Jens Martin Gurr co-directs the Competence Field “Metropolitan Research” in the University Alliance Ruhr. With Barbara Buchenau he led the Research Group ‘Scripts for Postindustrial Urban Futures: American Models, Transatlantic Interventions’ funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (2018-2023).
His monograph Charting Literary Urban Studies: Texts as Models of and for the City (Routledge, 2021) synthesized some ten years of research in literary urban studies. Pointing forward to the Just Futures project on cultural modelling, it explored the usefulness of model theory to literary studies. In the project, he will work with Roman Bartosch on WP3 to examine notions of modelling and modelling practices in literary criticism and educational research and materials.
funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
University of Cologne Department of English II and Research Hub for MESH
Full Professor of English.
His research bridges the Environmental Humanities and educational theory and practice, particularly in arts-based and literary pedagogies and with regard to sustainability, resilience, and transcultural learning. He is currently working on the modelling of learning objectives in times of large-scale extinction and climate catastrophe.
In the project, he will work with Jens Martin Gurr on WP3 to examine notions of modelling and modelling practices in literary criticism and educational research and materials. It seeks to survey how modelling is used and understood in these different fields, and how questions of intergenerational justice affect online readerships and classroom interactions.
funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)
University of Cologne,
MESH & IdSL1
Postdoc in German Linguistics/Sociolinguistics
Carolin Schwegler pursues research in socio-linguistics with a focus on discourse, social media, and conversation analysis. She holds a doctorate in German Linguistics from the University of Heidelberg. Her thesis focused on the development of argumentation strategies concerning climate, nature, and sustainability.
As a postdoctoral researcher, she engaged in interdisciplinary publication projects in the fields of environmental humanities, environmental linguistics, and eco-linguistics as well as international interdisciplinary projects. Carolin’s current research focuses on communicative practices of (climate- and health-related) prediction, risk, and prognosis, future-oriented language, and prospective communication.
funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
University of Graz/Department of English
University of Heidelberg/German Institute
PhD-Candidate in German Linguistics
Jöran Landschoff‘s academic interests revolve around socio- and discourse linguistic questions, focussing in particular on issues of political opinion dynamics and cultural knowledge structures. Investigating current problems in modern societal debates, his research necessarily looks into individual‘s and group constructions of future challenges and their possible solutions.
In his PhD-Thesis, Jöran Landschoff analyses a German Twitter-Corpus, aiming at detecting interactional communicative patterns, argumentative strategies and opinion communities in regard to attitudes toward climate, Covid and the candidates for the German Chancellorship in 2021. Apart from this, the Philosophy of Language and questions of discourse and power are his constant companions.
funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
University of Leeds
School of English
Full Professor of Environmental Humanities
David Higgins was Deputy Director of the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute from 2018 to 2021 and serves on the Executive Committee of the Priestley International Centre for Climate. For much of his career, he published largely on British Romantic literature and culture. British Romanticism, Climate Change, and the Anthropocene (Palgrave, 2017) marked a shift of focus into the environmental humanities. His current research focuses on two areas: (1) a creative nature writing project entitled The Butter Bump; (2) a wide-ranging project on the role of humanities in addressing anthropogenic climate change.
In the project, he will work with Julia Hoydis on WP1 to examine focuses on textual models of climate futures in Anglophone dramas and personal essays.
funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
University of Sheffield
iHuman & Department of Sociological Studies
Senior Lecturer in Digital Media & Society.
Warren’s research explores how science is used in public debates about politics and policy, with a current focus on three areas: 1) how digital platforms are changing experts and expertise; 2) the role of images in online science communication; 3) the use of scientific evidence, advice and assessment in policy work. He has researched these themes extensively through a series of journal articles examining the public life of climate change.
Warren co-leads WP2 with Carolin Schwegler, investigating how different communication modes (e.g. image, text, sound) found on social media platforms (e.g. TikTok, Instagram, Twitter) are used to model climate futures.
(The Netherlands)
funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Independent artist/designer.
Jasmijn Visser works on te intersection of art, design and research. Her research focuses on the perception of complexity, especially in relation to geopolitical conflict. She currently is working on her doctorate Climate as a Protagonist in War at the Rachel Carson Center (RCC) in Munich. Visser was part of the postgraduate artist institute De Ateliers and has exhibited, amongst others, at SongEun Artspace Seoul, Delfina Foundation London, CENART Mexico City, HKW Berlin, Museum Centre Krasnoyarsk, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
The development of the visual identity is a part of work package 1, in consultation with David Higgins and in collaboration with Ingmar König.
(The Netherlands)
Independent Artist/Developer
With his background in Fine Arts and Interior Architecture, Ingmar König has worked extensively with spatial installations, from which his practice has shifted towards exploring the interiority of interfaces within the digital realm.
He currently works as an independent game developer and spatial researcher and is a lecturer in the Advertising and Beyond department at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. Ingmar's work has been exhibited worldwide, including at the Tokyo Creative Salon, Chunart Museum Shanghai, Stroom Den Haag, and Art Brussels.
He collaborates with Jasmijn Visser on developing the visual identity of CCM.
University of Sheffield, The Wave, Department of Sociological Studies.
Yuting completed her PhD in History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester. In her thesis ‘Talking about a Greenish Red: The State-mediated Climate Change Communication in China’, she covers perspectives and methodologies from STS and communication studies to investigate the intertwining development of human society and the environment.
Yuting Yao is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sheffield for the CCM project. She collaborates with Dr Warren Pearce and Dr Carolin Schwegle on WP2, investigating how cultural forms contribute to modelling climate change on social media.
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Conferences/Panels
- 08/2023 Higgins, D., J. Hoydis, and R. Bartosch. Panel: “(Un)Just Transitions: Modelling Intergenerational Climate Futures in Recent Anglophone Fiction and Non-Fiction”. “Transitions” ASLE-UKI Conference 2023, University of Liverpool, Aug 30 – Sept. 1, 2023.
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Talks/Lectures
- 08/2024 Bartosch, R. “Future Imperfect: The End of the World and the Teaching of English”, The European Society for the Study of English 2024 Conference, Lausanne, August 26-30, 2024.
- 08/2024 Hoydis, J. “The Challenge to Imagine Just Futures: Narration and Intergenerationality in Contemporary Fiction” (Parallel Lecture), The European Society for the Study of English 2024 Conference, Lausanne, August 26-30, 2024.
- 07/2024 Higgins, D. “’And no birds sing’: Ecological Loss in Transatlantic Nature Writing”. (Keynote) Transatlantic Studies Annual Conference, Lancaster University, July 8-10, 2024.
- 07/2024 Higgins, D. “Cultural Modelling and Climate Futures.” (Paper). Interdisciplinary Research Network for Time Seminar, University of Leeds, July 3, 2024.
- 06/2024 Higgins, D. “Parenting as the Seas Rise.” (Paper) EASLCE Symposium 2024 Sea More Blue, Perpignan, June 17-20, 2024.
- 06/2024 Hoydis, J. “Fearing the Flood: Modelling Climate Futures in Contemporary British Drama.” (Paper) EASLCE Symposium 2024 Sea More Blue, Perpignan, June 17-20, 2024.
- 04/2024 Bartosch, R. “Scaling Perspectives: On (Not) Reading Fiction in the Anthropocene.” Growing Futures: Vegetal Encounters in Contemporary Children’s and Young Adult Ecofiction, University of Cologne, April 25-27, 2024.
- 02/2024 Bartosch, R. “Rethinking Agency in the Anthropocene.”, Literature and the Anthropocene in Education, Luleå University of Technology, February 20-21, 2024.
- 02/2024 Higgins, D. “Creative Public Engagement and Post-Extractivist Landscapes.” (Workshop) Extractivist Landscapes Project, University College Dublin, February 26, 2024.
- 02/2024 Hoydis, J. “Human Resilience Amidst Crisis: The ‘Ordinary Magic’ of Realism and Routines in Contemporary Climate Novels.” (Keynote). Conference The ‘Ordinary Magic’ of Resilience in Anglophone Literatures: Past, Present, Futures, University of Stuttgart, February 22-23, 2024.
- 12/2023 Higgins, D. “Intergenerational Justice and Climate Inequality” (Paper). Research Foresight Webinar, University of Leeds, December 5, 2023.
- 12/2023 Hoydis, J. “Realism and Resilience: Narrating Climate Futures in Contemporary British Fiction” (Keynote). International Workshop "How Can We Narrate Climate Change and Climate Grief.“ University of Prag, December 6-7, 2023.
- 11/2023 Bartosch, R. “Doing Nothing to Save the Planet. Resisting the Solutionist Imperative in Education” (invited paper) Unterricht auf einem bedrohten Planeten – Perspektiven und Herausforderungen einer Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung im Unterricht der sprachlichen Fächer, University of Duisburg-Essen, November 3-4, 2023.
- 10/2023 Schwegler, C., J. Landschoff, and J. Hoydis. “Climate Futures in Multimodal Social Media Discourse: A Linguistic Perspective on the Modelling Character of Multimodal Ensembles.” (Paper) ADDA 4 Conference- Contemporary Societies in Digital Discourse, University of Klagenfurt, October 12-14, 2023.
- 09/2023 Hoydis, J. “Encounters Between Aging Studies and Ecocriticism: Futures of Care and Intergenerational Justice in Contemporary Drama”. Aging in a Caring Society? Theories in Conversation. Age and Care Conference 2023, University of Graz, September 20-22, 2023.
- 08/2023 Bartosch, R. “Teaching the Future Imperfect: Intergenerational (In)Justice and Future-Making in the Literature Classroom” (paper). “Transitions” ASLE-UKI Conference 2023, University of Liverpool, August 29 – September 1, 2023.
- 08/2023 Higgins, D. “Procreation, Modelling, and Uncertainty in the Climate Essay.” (Paper) “Transitions” ASLE-UKI Conference 2023, University of Liverpool, Aug 30. – Sept. 1, 2023.
- 08/2023 Hoydis, J. “Resilience, Routines, and the Figure of the Child to Come in Realist Disaster Novels.” (Paper) “Transitions” ASLE-UKI Conference 2023, University of Liverpool, Aug 30. – Sept. 1, 2023.
- 07/2023 Bartosch, R. “Reading Rocks! Hermeneutics in the Anthropocene” (invited paper). ZfL Ringvorlesung ‘Fokus BNE’, University of Cologne, July 4, 2023.
- 05/2023 Bartosch, R. and Hoydis, J. “Imagining Infrastructural Collapse: Modelling Human Survival in Recent ‘Pandemic’ Fiction”. (paper). GAPS Conference Postcolonial Infrastructures, University of Konstanz, May 17-20, 2023.
- 04/2023 Gurr, J. “Cli-Fi Novels as Models of and for Climate Futures” (Presentation). University of Cologne, April 25, 2023.
- 03/2023 Gurr, J. and C. Ulbert. “Transformation and Communication” (Session Keynote). Research Day “Research for Sustainable Solutions @ UDE”. University of Duisburg-Essen, March 2, 2023.
- 01/2023 Gurr, J. “Understanding Public Debates: What Literary Studies Can Do” (Book Project), Literary Studies Colloquium. LMU Munich, January 21, 2023.
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Interviews/Media
- Bartosch, R. Interview with KlimaZeit (2024). “Klimakrise und Poetry Slam.” ARD Tagesschau 24, August 30. Link
- Bartosch, R., Interview with Christel Wester (2023). “Der Schwarm und die Climate Fiction.“ WDR, 6 March. Link
- Bartosch, R., Interview with Marion Schmidt (2023). “Das Phänomen Maja Lunde. Klimawandel als Bestseller.“ arte, Link [no longer available].
- Hoydis, J., Interview with Cornelia Grobner (2023). “In der Literatur hat uns die Apokalypse längst eingeholt.“ Die Presse, 11 November. Link
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Other Activities/Outreach
- 01/2023 Cultural Climate Models Project at Digital Methods Initiative (January 8-12).
- Schwegler, C., Landschoff, J., Rommel, L (2024) Climate Imaginaries and the Linguistic Construction of Identities on Social Media. Z Literaturwiss Linguistik.
- Gurr, J.M. (2024) Understanding Public Debates: What Literary Studies Can Do. Routledge. Chapter 5: “Cli-Fi Novels as Models of and for Climate Futures” (137-170).
- Hoydis, J. (2024). “Parables for Planetary Crisis: Multispecies Migration and Storytelling in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island.” Interventions. International Journal of Postcolonial Studies: pp. 1-19. Open Access.
- Bartosch, R., Fuchs, St. (2024). “The worst is yet to come: Theoretical and Empirical Findings on Mental Health in a Climate-changed World.” In Mental Health in English Language Education. Eds. Ch. Ludwig et al. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 61-73.
- Lieven, A., Gurr, J.M., Buchenau, B. (2023) Narrative in Planning: A Practical Field Guide. Transcript [OA].
- Hoydis, J., Bartosch, R., Gurr, J.M. (2023) Climate Change Literacy. Key Elements in Environmental Humanities Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [OA].
- Buchenau, B., Gurr, J.M., Sulimma, M., eds. (2023) City Scripts: Narratives of Postindustrial Urban Futures. The Ohio State University Press [OA].
- Balestrini, N.W., J. Hoydis, A.-C. Kainradl, and U. Kriebernegg, eds (2023). Aging Studies and Ecocriticism: Interdisciplinary Encounters. Ecocritical Theory and Practice Series. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
- Hoydis, J. (2023). “Caring (for) Futures: Intergenerational Justice in Contemporary British Drama.” In Aging Studies and Ecocriticism. Eds. N.W. Balestrini, J. Hoydis, A.-Ch. Kainradl, U. Kriebernegg. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 147-164.
- Balestrini, N.W., J. Hoydis, A.-C. Kainradl, and U. Kriebernegg (2023). “Introduction: Aging Studies and Ecocriticism – Interdisciplinary Encounters.” In Aging Studies and Ecocriticism. Eds. Nassim W. Balestrini, Julia Hoydis, Anna-Christina Kainradl, Ulla Kriebernegg. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 1-19.
- Bartosch, R. (2023). “Death, Extinction, and the Limits of Literacy.” In Taboos and Controversial Issues in Foreign Language Education. Critical Language Pedagogy in Theory, Research and Practice. Eds. Ch. Ludwig and T. Summer. London/New York: Routledge, 195-205.
- Bartosch, R., D. Adone, J. Hoydis, K. Junker, S. Kumar, and K. Rigby (2023). „Zukunftsgestaltungskompetenz im Angesicht der Katastrophe. In Ecological Literacy als mehrdimensionale Herausforderung.” Futures Literacy. Eds. G. Brandhofer, E. Rauscher, and C. Sippl. Pädagogik für Niederösterreich, Bd. 27. Innsbruck: Studienverlag. 111-122.
- Hoydis, J., and R. Bartosch. “Climate Fiction as Future-Making: Narrative and Cultural Modelling beyond Representation.” Future Humanities [accepted]
