Oxford Environmental History Network
The Oxford Environmental History Network (OEHN) aims to connect researchers working in environmental history and to promote the latest research and opportunities in this exciting field.
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Contact us: oehn@history.ox.ac.uk

Detail of a miniature of bees collecting nectar and returning to their hive, from a bestiary with theological texts, England, c. 1200 – c. 1210,
Environmental history investigates humans’ changing ecological entanglements over time. Its practitioners work over different time periods and geographical regions and draw on methodological ideas and practices from various scholarly traditions such as history, archaeology, geography, visual art and the natural sciences.
This interdisciplinary approach is what makes environmental history such an exhilarating field, yet it can also be what divides it. Environmental historians often belong to different departments and faculties, and at Oxford they are yet to share a sub-institutional affiliation. Hence, they are not always informed of relevant work done by their colleagues within the same University.
The Oxford Environmental History Network wishes to foster a virtual community of environmental historians in Oxford. The aim of the network is threefold:
- To connect researchers confronting similar conceptual and methodological challenges, even if working across different regions and time periods
- To showcase environmental history research being undertaken at Oxford and elsewhere
- To publicise relevant events and opportunities occurring both at Oxford as well as internationally

Lisa Briggs:
My name is Lisa Briggs and I am an underwater archaeologist who specialises in using scientific methods to investigate the organic cargoes of ancient shipwrecks. By examining what agricultural products were grown, gathered, and transported aboard ancient ships, I hope to gain a better understanding of how ancient humans interacted with their environment. Methods include isotope analysis of botanical remains, ancient DNA research, and identification of ancient wood samples through microscopy.

Dr Amy McLennan
Dr McLennan is a collaborative anthropologist with a strong sense of local and global community, and a deep commitment to improving human wellbeing. Amy is currently a John Monash Scholar and Research Associate with the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford. She maintains a vibrant interdisciplinary research portfolio in collaboration with scholars in disciplines including network mathematics, ecology, history, anatomical science, human geography, ethnology and policy. This has included collaborative research on the historical and contemporary links between global food systems, culture, environment
Dr Sophie Haines - James Martin Fellow and ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society at the University of Oxford.
A talk by Professor Sarah S. Elkind
Fishing and the Global History of Conservation: Preliminary Comparisons of Past and Present
Tuesday 10 December 2019
Tea and coffee from 10:00, Seminar at 10:30
Colin Matthew seminar room, History Faculty
In her talk for the OEHN, Sarah S. Elkind will present a segment of her new project which aims to investigate the global history of resource conservation, its environmental justice consequences, and their implications for managing global climate change.

JULIA ADENEY THOMAS
Associate Professor of History, University of Notre Dame
16.00-17.30, Thursday 11 October, 2018.
Lecture room, Faculty of History, University of Oxford.
41-47 George St, Oxford OX1 2BE
Followed by drinks. All welcome.

Ecologies of Knowledge and Practice
Japanese Studies and the Environmental Humanities
Postgraduate and Early Career Workshop
St Antony’s College, University of Oxford
27th and 28th October 2017

The Oxford Environmental History Network in conjunction with the Centre for Global History will be hosting a workshop - ‘Writing histories in the era of the Anthropocene’ - in late May 2018. This postgraduate workshop will be led by Professor John Brooke, author of Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough Journey.
More details to come.