Lectures, Presentations, and Workshops
* = keynote / + = invited
“Arts-Driven Participatory Research and the Fight against LNG,” 3rd Baltic Environmental Humanities Conference, Poznań, Poland, October 2024.
*”Beyond Fossil Communities: Neighbors, Art, Alliances,” address for the 2-day workshop, “Transformative Alliances: Environmental Humanities in the Anthropocene,” University of Copenhagen, Denmark, October 2024.
“Energy Infrastructure and Activists between the Delaware Bay and Baltic Sea,” Petrocultures Conference 2024, Los Angeles, May 2024.
+“Our Climate Stories: Why We Should Craft and Share Our Experiences of Climate Change,” a two-day workshop at Stanford University, May 2024.
*“How Can We Collaborate across the Arts and Sciences for Just Transitions?” Bromery Seminar at the Johns Hopkins Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, Baltimore, Maryland, April 2024.
*“Cross-Campus and Cross-Community Teaching in and on the Anthropocene,” University of Iowa, Iowa City, March 2024.
*“Humanists at Work in the World: Campus-Community Partnerships for Environmental Justice,” Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, January 2024.
+“My Climate Story and Public Environmental Humanities,” University of Toronto, November 2023. Presented virtually.
+“Forming Regional Environmental Collaboratories,” “Reclaiming the Commons,” Conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Portland, Oregon, July 2023.
*”When Will It Be Over? Enduring Climate Legacies and Working for Climate Justice in America’s Largest Poor City,” University of Massachusetts Boston, March 2023
+“My Climate Story,” Summit on Climate Leadership in Higher Education, Conference of Second Nature, Miami, Florida, February 2023.
+“Telling and Sharing Your Climate Story,” UNESCO’s Learning Planet Festival, January 2023. Presented Virtually.
+“My Climate Story: Making Climate Data Meaningful,” Humboldt Foundation Seminar for Journalists. November 2022. Presented Virtually.
+“Environmental Humanities and Public Humanities,” Penn Global Ambassadors Alumni, University of Pennsylvania, October 2022.
+“Climate Storytelling,” Lecture at “Living with Climate Change,” Conference at the American Philosophical Society, September 2022. Philadelphia, PA.
+(with Nandita Badami and Pooja Nayak) “Environmental Humanities: Critical Affordances after Critique,” University of Cambridge, England, May 2022. Online
+“Storytelling for Community Scientists,” Public Lab, April 2022. Online.
+“Youth-Centered Climate Engagement through Personal Stories,” Workshop at “Arts + Sociocultural Transformation,” VII ALPHELEIA International Seminar organized by the UNESCO Chair in Humanities (Tomar) and the UNESCO program MOST (Ministry for Social Transformation. Online.
*“Listening for Climate Stories,” Lecture and Workshop for Interfaith Power and Light, Chesapeake Bay Chapter, March 2022. In person.
+“My Climate Story: Telling and Sharing Personal Stories,” Lecture in Seminar “Advocacy and Activism to Achieve a Healthy Climate” at Collaborative Online innovative Learning Project Comparative Responses to Global Health Emergencies, Penn Medicine. March 2022. Online.
*“Teaching with Climate Stories,” Lecture and Workshop for Educating for Sustainability Working Group, Temple University, February 2022.
+“My Climate Story: Telling and Sharing Personal Stories,” Lecture and Workshop in Seminar on Public Health, Climate Change, and Cities (Penn Nursing and Penn Design), January 2022.
+“Humanities Research and the Climate Emergency,” Roundtable, Conference of the Modern Languages Association, Washington, D.C., January 2022. Online.
*The Power of Climate Storytelling, Plenary, Conference of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, November 2021.
+“Learning Networks, Environmental Humanities,” Chair of Sessions on Radical Imaginations Beyond the Anthropocene: Emerging Futures, Conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE), July 2021.
+“Engaging Black Ecologies as a White ‘Lady,’” Institute for Community Engaged Research, Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa, June 2021.
+“Environmental Justice and the Humanities: Building Futures Beyond Refining in Philadelphia,” Grand Rounds at Schools of Public Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University.” May 2021.
+”Place Attachment amidst Extraction,” Symposium on Extractive Landscapes and Logics, West Virginia University, May 2021.
+“Place-Based Humanities at Scale?” European Humanities Conference, a UNESCO Conference, Lisbon, Portugal [participating remotely], May 2021.
+“When Will It Be Over? Water, Flood, Toxics, and the Duration of Colonial Legacies in Philadelphia,” Conference on “Climate in Context: Historical Precedents and the Unprecedented,” Institute for Historical Studies, University of Texas Austin, April 2021.
+“Futures Beyond Refining,” College of Environment + Design, University of Georgia Athens, March 2021.
*“Learning with Forgotten Places,” Keynote for Doing Environmental Humanities in a Digital World,” A Nordic Network PhD Course at The Greenhouse, University of Stavanger, Norway, December 2020.
+“Off Campus: Place-Based Pedagogy and the Environmental Inhumanities,” Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, December 2020.
* “Place-Based Projects in Unloved Places,”Workshop on Governance, Formalization, and Strategic Development of the BRIDGES Coalition,” A UNESCO Sustainability Science Project. Held remotely and hosted by Cappadocia University, Turkey. July 2020.
* Canceled because of Covid-19. “The Question concerning Ecology,” University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, May 2020.
+ Canceled because of Covid-19. “Extractive Energy and the Environmental Humanities,” West Virginia University, April 2020.
+ Expert Testimony on the Philadelphia Refinery and its Future, Philadelphia City Council, November 2019.
+ “Teaching the Environmental Humanities: Public Research Methods,” Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich, Germany, November 2019.
+ Mayor’s Refinery Commission, Philadelphia, PA, September 2019.
* “The Green Sun, a Micro-Symposium,” Philadelphia, PA, August 2019.
* “Pedagogy of the Climate Changed: Experiment, Embodiment, Engagement,” Cultures of Energy 8, Center for Energy Humanities, Rice University, Houston, TX, April 2019.
+ “Teaching the Environment,” Beyond Despair: Theory and Practice in Environmental Humanities, National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, NC, April 2019. https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/beyond-despair-next-steps-environmental-humanities/
+ “The Banality of Evil and the Climate Crisis,” A Conversation with writer Nathaniel Popkin, The Rosenbach Library, Philadelphia, PA, March 2019.
* “Environmental Humanists and Climate Humanists: Partnerships and Program-Building on American Campuses.” Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, March 2019. https://earth.rowan.edu/departments/geography/research/environmentalhumanities/speaker-series.html
* “Rising Waters: Teaching and Learning in the Age of Climate Change,” Meeting of the Ivies + Undergraduate Deans, Philadelphia, PA, March 2019.
+ “Pedagogy of the Climate-Changed: Environmental Humanities and the Right to Research,” University of Delaware, Newark, DE, February 2019.
+ “Environmental and Embodied Humanities,” Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, February 2019.
* “Climate Change and Pedagogy: Experiential and Embodied Learning for the Academy and Beyond,” Northeastern University, Boston, MA, February 2019.
+ “Babel of the Atlantic: How the Blue Humanities Might Speak with Translation Studies.” Bard College, Annandale On-Hudson, New York, February 2019.
+ “The Trans in Transdisciplinary River Archives.” The Inhabited Sea. Indian Institute of Technology. Mumbai, India, January 2019.
+ “The Germantown Anti-Slavery Protest: Language, Nation, Empire,” University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, November 2018.
+ “Climate and Data Storytelling,” Double Exposure, Washington, D.C., October 2018. “Moravians and Mennonites, a Panel Comment.” Conference of the German Studies Association, Pittsburgh, PA, October 2018.
+ “Preservation versus Access in Libraryland?” The Future of Libraries, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA, October 2018.
* “Finding Data Refuge in Uncertain Times,” keynote address for OpenCon Boulder, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, September 2018.
+ “What is Environmental Humanities?” Rachel Carson Center, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany, June 2018.
+ “Rising Waters,” Ben Talks, a series of popular talks organized by the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Association. Lincoln Center, New York, February 2018; Los Angeles and San Francisco, May 2018.
+ “Teaching Environmental Humanities,” Provost’s Environmental Humanities Initiative, New York University, New York, NY, May 2018.
+ “Liquid Histories and Floating Archives: Practicing Environmental Humanities on Urban Waterways.” Cornell University, May 2018.
+ “Duration and Duress: Making Liquid History in Philadelphia since 1680.” Featured speaker, Brave New Worlds: Dwelling in a Changing Climate. Center for Humanities at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, May 2018.
+ “Place-Based Inquiry across Oceans,” Break/Throughs: New Ideas for Policy, Conference of the Fels Policy Research Initiative, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, April 2018.
+ “Extreme Climate Change, Extreme Disruption from a Humanist’s Perspective,” Wharton School Conference on Extreme Climate Change, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, April 2018.
* “Environments of Modernity Plenary Address,” Environments of Modernity Conference, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, March 2018.
+ “Living Data, Endangered Data, and Data Refuge,” Against Amnesia: Archives, Evidence, and Social Justice Conference at the Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa, Iowa City, March 2018.
* “The Anthropocene at the Confluence.” Plenary Address, The Philadelphia Anthropocene Campus, Drexel University, October 2017.
* “How Did We Get Here? Public Environmental Humanities,” Keynote address at the Humanities Action Lab, Newark, New Jersey, October 2017.
+ “Wissen und Macht,” Conversation with Carolin Emcke in Streitraum at Die Schaubühne, Berlin, Germany, October 2017.
* “Why the Humanities Matter (Today Especially),” Keynote for Hood College Humanities Research Festival, Fredericksburg, Maryland, September, 2017.
+ “Caring for Data,” Beineke Library, Yale University, May 2017.
+ “Why Libraries Must Actively Collect,” Conference of the Directors of the Association for Research Libraries, Philadelphia, PA, May 2017.
+ “Environmental Humanities on the Schuylkill River: From Botanical Garden to Oil Refinery to Data Refuge,” Center for Advanced Studies, University of Minnesota, March 2017.
+ “Utopia Found, Lost, and Re-Imagined,” Center for Humanities at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 2017.
+ “Floating on Warmer Waters,” Lightbulb Cafe at World Cafe Live, WXPN Radio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 2017.
* “Forgotten Places, Radical Hope, and the Environmental Humanities: Travels on an Industrial River.” Max Kade Distinguished Lecture, Lafayette College, November 2016.
+ “Translation as a Reparative Tool,” Translating across Space and Time Conference, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA, October 2016.
+ “Public Engagement in/and Historic Germantown,” University of Iowa, October 2016.
+ “Philadelphian Experiments: Past, Present, Future,” Invited Lecture at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, October 2016.
+ “’I Remember Earth’: Historical Memory and Utopian Hope,” Dean’s Lecture Series, Stony Brook University, September 2016.
* “Mixing Oil and Water: Environmental Humanities on the Lower Schuylkill River.” Keynote Address at the University of Oregon, January 2016.
+ “Everything You Always Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask … Environmental Humanities.” Knowledge by the Slice Lecture Series, University of Pennsylvania, November 2015.
+ “Poor Christoph’s Almanac: Popular Education in Colonial German Almanacs,” University of Münster, June 2015.
+ “Pre-Modern World and National Literatures at 1700: The German Case,” Princeton University, April 2015.
+ “How the Humanities Can Communicate Climate Change.” Invited Speaker at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 2015.
+ “Utopia Found and Lost in the Early Modern Atlantic World.” Invited Lecture and Workshop, Research Seminar on the Transatlantic Enlightenment, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee. December 2014.
* “Everywhere a Guest? Environmental Humanities in the Arts and Sciences Curriculum,” University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, November 2014.
+ “Utopian Histories for the Anthropocene,” University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, November 2014
+ “More’s Utopia: A Manifesto for the Environmental Humanities?” Temple University. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 2014.
+ “World Literature, UnTranslatability, and the Return of History.” Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. May 2014.
+ “Literature in Hotter Times.” The Biosphere Summit. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 2014.
+ “Catholic Cruelty and Indian Savagery Compared: Images of War and Terror from the Eighty Years War to the Seven Years War.” Conference on Black Legends and Domestic Dissent, UCLA Clark Library, Los Angeles, California, February 10-11, 2012.
+ “The Trouble with Early Modern Fashionable Eves,” Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, Penn State University, February 2009.
+ “Robinson Crusoe in Germany: English Fashion and the German Book in the Eighteenth Century.” Department of German, Princeton University, January 2009.