Resources

This page contains a range of resources related to Environmental Humanities at the University of Victoria and beyond

  • GRS 304: Ecocriticism and the Ancient World. New course in GRS coming 2027. This course, taught by Janet Downie, explores productive and destructive interactions with nature in Greek and Roman antiquity. Examines literary, artistic, philosophical, religious, and scientific constructions of the natural world. Topics may include: myth and the environment, nature writing, visual depictions of the natural world, views on and treatment of non-human animals, ethics of consumption, human harm to the environment, natural disasters and apocalypticism.
  • HUMA 480: Persuasive Communications and Climate Change. New course coming Fall 2026. Stephen Ross is designing this course in collaboration with UVic Libraries.
  • Chen, Zhongping. Rural China’s Rise and Fall during the Little Ice Age: Human-environmental Interactions and Economic Change in the Yangzi Delta, 1350-1850. Funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant.
  • Colby, Jason. Sperms and Pachyderms: A Terraqueous History. Funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant.
  • Dean, Misao. Creating a Food Forest in Cowichan Valley.
  • Holman, Sean. Climate Disaster Project. Our students prepared a series of testimonies that were published in The Guardian to coincide with COP31. And they also prepared a series of testimonies that were published by Anabaptist World, the largest magazine for Anabaptists in the world. See links to published articles in the Interviews and News Articles section below, and read more about the project here.
  • Landry, Pierre-Luc. Research Creative Notes for Queer Ecologies Project. Instagram page.
  • Lowey, Braedon. A Fire to Last Until Morning. A Master's project documentary film. Read about the film here and watch the film through the UVic Space.
  • McClenachan, Loren. Pacific Cod Historical Ecology and Climate History. Funded by the US National Science Foundation. This project integrates archival, archaeological, and traditional Indigenous knowledge into management for Pacific cod in Alaska. As part of this project, my collaborators and I used historical archival records to assess ecological drivers of past changes in Pacific cod to inform modern management
  • McClenachan, Loren. Climate Impacts and Adaptation in the American Lobster Fishery. Funded by the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. This set of projects uses fishers’ local ecological knowledge to better understand range-changing species and their impacts on local food webs, as well as perceptions of tradeoffs among renewable energy production, endangered species protection, and preserving a fair future for fisheries.
  • Ocean Networks Canada. Solid Carbon Project. Funded by the New Frontiers in Research Fund. Jason Colby is a co-applicant and the history coordinator. Read about the project here.
  • Ross, Stephen. Food4Thought Climate Action Group established with undergrads and grad students, in partnership with Satinflower Nurseries and Campus Community Gardens to install kitchen garden planters on patios for residents in Family Housing. See the Student blog and Instagram page.
  • Colby, Jason. (2026, February 9). Orcas and ourselves. Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/orcas-havent-changed-but-our-view-of-the-killer-whale-has?src=longreads.
  • Heyd, Thomas. (2023). Climate Change and the Environmental Humanities. In G. Pellegrino and M. Di Paola (Eds.), Handbook of Philosophy of Climate Change. Handbooks in Philosophy. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16960-2_111-1.
  • Heyd, Thomas. (2022). Precursors and Antecedents of the Anthropocene. Social Sciences, 11(7), 286. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11070286.
  • McClenachan, Loren, Bruce Anderson, Jason Addison, et al. (2025). ‘The Fish That Stop’: Drivers of Historical Decline for Pacific Cod and Implications for Modern Management in an Era of Rapidly Changing Climate. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 380(1930), 20240278. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2024.0278.
  • McClenachan, Loren, Benjamin Neal, Marissa McMahan, Ellie Batchelder, Neida Villanueva‐Galarza, and Jonathan Grabowski. (2025). Fishers’ Local Ecological Knowledge Reveals Complex Food Web Dynamics With Rapidly Warming Waters. Fish and Fisheries, 26(6), 1122-1133. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.70021.
  • McClenachan, Loren and Jason Colby. (2026). The timing and magnitude of historical exploitation in the ocean. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 381(1942), 20240418. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2024.0418.
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