The Environmental Humanities (EH) initiative at Reed College fosters innovative curriculum, vital scholarship, and collaborative approaches to ecological crisis and the cultural imagination. The initiative supports new scholarship in the environmental humanities, develops new models of interdisciplinary teaching, and creates a cluster of courses focused on environmental justice and the literary imagination.
How can we connect what we learn in the classroom to the real-world challenges of the climate crisis?
As a co-curricular partnership between residence life, sustainability, and Environmental Humanities, the Sustainability and Environmental Justice (SEJ) Collective is a hub for collaboration and interdisciplinary learning. The collective encourages students to think critically about complex issues of social and environmental justice, while imagining new possibilities for a better world.
Read More about the SEJ Collective in Reed Magazine
Taking an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability education enables us to gain new perspectives and connections across biology, chemistry, economics, history, political science, art, and other fields of study.
Academic Programs
Environmental Humanities
Environmental Studies
Courses
Reed College received a $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to support new scholarship in the environmental humanities, develop new models of interdisciplinary teaching, and create a cluster of courses focused on environmental justice and the literary imagination.
For a list of the incubated courses from the first two years of the Mellon grant (fall 2023–spring 2025), view the Environmental Humanities initiative’s faculty and courses page.
SEJ Collective Thesis Group
The SEJ Collective Thesis Group brings together students whose academic writing and research engage with our relationship to place and environment in a range of disciplines. Centering the idea that environmental study is inherently transdisciplinary and interconnected, the SEJ Collective Thesis Group creates a mutually supportive learning community through weekly gatherings in Prexy, where students can come for snacks, conversation, and a quiet place to think and write. All students interested in topics related to environmental humanities and environmental studies are welcome to sign up.