The environmental humanities doctoral certificate is an interdisciplinary program whose aim is to develop modes of inquiry in environmental humanities research by exposing students to a range of theories and methods in the disciplines and interdisciplinary fields of humanities research and practice. Throughout the certificate, graduate students engage and refine approaches to environmental scholarly inquiry and practice in a time of intensifying planetary and local crisis.
Cogut Institute for the Humanities
Center for Environmental Humanities at Brown
Doctoral Certificate in Environmental Humanities
Fostering multidisciplinary learning, research, and pedagogy on the more-than-human world and pervasive environmental crises
Doctoral Certificate in Environmental Humanities
Fostering multidisciplinary learning, research, and pedagogy on the more-than-human world and pervasive environmental crises
Objectives
- To increase fluency with the broad range of methods and topics that inform environmental humanities research.
- To foster a cross-disciplinary intellectual community for doctoral students invested in the environmental humanities.
- To facilitate the development of doctoral research in critical conversation with scholars within and outside their primary disciplinary affiliation.
The completion of the certificate is formally recorded by the Graduate School on transcripts and can serve as a distinctive credential for professional advancement.
Requirements
The certificate has four course credits and a presentation component.
“Approaches to Environmental Humanities Research,” open to all students, is a key requirement of the certificate program and is typically offered once a year. Depending on the academic year, it may be offered as a team-taught collaborative humanities seminar (under HMAN 2410) or a single-instructor course (under HMAN 2210).
These can be selected from a list of courses (see “doctoral certificate electives” available on the center’s website). If you’d like to request consideration of another course or independent study as an elective, please also email the course description and syllabus to environmental-humanities@brown.edu.
- One of these two electives must be primarily listed outside the student’s department;
- Only one of these courses may be a 1000-level course.
One objective of the Doctoral Certificate in Environmental Humanities is that students advance their own scholarship and practice in the environmental humanities in conversation with faculty and peers. Admission in the certificate program and approval of capstone plans are required ahead of registration for the semester-long research project.
Options include enrollment in:
The Project Development Workshop (HMAN 2500), taught each spring. Admission takes place by the beginning of the fall semester. Approval of the project topic by the director of the Center for Environmental Humanities is required.
Students in the Project Development Workshop develop a research paper alongside participants in the collaborative humanities certificate.
An independent study with a faculty member affiliated with CEHAB. Students should obtain approval of the workplan by the CEHAB director prior to registration.
Independent studies might include forms of engaged scholarship and creative modes of scholarly output.
The CEHAB director is available to meet and discuss capstone ideas and proposals.
The certificate creates a space to share work-in-progress with the environmental humanities community. Eligible presentation spaces include the Collaborative Public Workshop, a departmental colloquium, a CEHAB reading group, and an on-campus event, among others. Students should plan to submit a brief reflection on their next steps with the work and its possible publication by the end of their capstone semester.
Admission to Certificate
Doctoral students can enroll in the certificate program at any point in time, and prior to enrolling in the research capstone for credit. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis and admission is required prior to enrollment in the research capstone.
Students interested in participating in the Project Development Workshop, taught once each year each Spring, must seek admission by the Fall semester of the same academic year. Workshop participants who would like to be in residence at the institute and have desk space assigned to them should consider applying early as assignments are made on a first-come, first-served basis in the spring of the preceding academic year.
Students developing their own independent study project should aim to enroll at least 5 months prior to their capstone semester.
Apply for admission on UFunds under “Doctoral Certificates” and “Environmental Humanities.”
Approval and Completion of the Capstone
Project Development Workshop
The Project Development Workshop (HMAN 2500) provides a supportive space for students pursuing either the Doctoral Certificate in Collaborative Humanities or the Doctoral Certificate in Environmental Humanities to share their work and receive and give feedback that will broaden and sharpen the framing of their projects.
Projects may be a stand-alone component of a dissertation chapter, an article on method/theory, or a stand-alone essay related to the larger field. At the end of the semester, participants present their research in a Collaborative Public Workshop.
During the fall semester that precedes the seminar, students will be asked to submit a tentative project abstract and title that will be shared with both the Director of the Center for the Environmental Humanities and the course instructors.
Independent Study
Independent study with a CEHAB-affiliated faculty member is suited for projects that build forms of engaged scholarship and creative modes of scholarly output. Consult early with the CEHAB Director to discuss ideas and proposals.
Work-in-Progress Submission
At the end of your capstone semester, please submit a work-in-progress report to the Director of the Center for Environmental Humanities through the form below.
Your submission should include:
- An unpublished scholarly work.
- A brief reflection (max. 2 pages) on its presentation, the questions raised by readers and audience members, and the next steps considered by the author. Eligible presentation spaces include the Collaborative Public Workshop, a departmental colloquium, a CEHAB reading group, and an on-campus event, among others.