About Us

Our Expertise  The Environmental Studies Workshop focuses on local, regional, global, and planetary systems as they relate to human history, religion and ethics, law and policy, economic development, political economy, the built environment, urban design, art and film, and resource management. The workshop brings critical, cross-disciplinary, and interdisciplinary inquiry to contemporary environmental problems within academia. We bring together students who work on themes relating to the environment in the social sciences, humanities, policy, and scientific fields. Our group is broadly inclusive in terms of periodicity, discipline, methodology, and geography. We offer participants a platform to present works in progress, offer group feedback, and discuss original published articles of current importance.

What is a Workshop?  The University of Chicago is known internationally for its unique Council for Advanced Studies, which engages students in the critical peer review of original work developed on and off campus, the design of speaker schedules and invited guest lectures, and the development of thematic and curated projects. Workshops and student groups are funded to do much more than just promote a series of speakers–they are organized around developing schools of thought, resistance to established schools, theoretical trajectories, and important contemporary research problems.