Winter School in Planetary Histories (November 2026) – applications open

Aims:

The aim of the course is to explore what environmental history is and can be in a
“planetary” age. In recent years, the planetary has emerged as an epistemological
and historical category in its own right. The course aims to provide students with
an introduction to these perspectives, how they challenge us to interpret the past
in new ways, and critically approach the epistemologies and politics underpinning
planetary knowledge. We will explore how the material dimensions of the planet,
and their interwoven relations with politics and economics, shape our
understanding of history and compel us to think across new temporalities and
timescales. Planetary histories are in this sense not necessarily “big histories”, but
ways of historically accounting for how the human and the planetary intersect in
particular settings.

Contents:

The course will feature a keynote lecture by Paul Edwards (Stanford), sessions
taught by Julia Nordblad (Uppsala), Alexis Rider (Vienna) and Jonathan Galka
(KTH), and a field trip to the Askö laboratory in the Stockholm archipelago.
Participants will receive feedback on their own work by The Centre for
Anthropocene History’s faculty. The course is organized by Erik Isberg and Emil
Flatø.

To apply

Please send a short CV and an abstract of your dissertation topic (max
300 words) with the subject line "Planetary Histories application" to
eriisb@kth.se by October 1st. We welcome applications from PhD candidates
working in environmental history and other historical subdisciplines, as well as
STS, political ecology, environmental humanities, anthropology, or other related
disciplines. The course is free of charge, and lunches and coffee are included,
but students are expected to cover their own travel and lodging. If you are
prevented from attending for lack of of funds, please write to us, as we have
some limited funding for travel costs.

Read more.