Coasts, Climates, the Humanities, and the Environment is a consortium created by a $150,000 Mellon grant in 2019, comprising of researchers from the Universities of Georgia, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Louisiana State, and Florida. Blending archival research and public engagement, the consortium has sought to bring humanistic insights to bear on environmental challenges—particularly related to the diverse, complex ecologies and cultures of coastal zones.
In January 2023, members of the consortium visited UF for an overnight public humanities research excursion to the Gulf of Mexico, organized around visits to IFAS aquaculture, biological, and marine science research stations located in Cedar and Seahorse Key. Talks by aquaculturist Leslie Sturmer, Mike Allen (Director of the Nature Coast Biological Station), and environmental historian Jack Davis prepared the group for a day-and-a-half of immersive engagement with cross-hatched histories of colonialism, environmental change, and communal worldmaking in the region. Archaeologist Kenneth Sassaman and environmental writer Cynthia Barnett led the group in walking tours through sites in the Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge, especially Atsena Otie Key—a formerly developed island abandoned after the hurricane of 1896, which is also the subject of a digital humanities project produced by the UF contingent of the consortium.
Read more articles from the CHPS 2022-23 Annual Newsletter >