Members

Conveners

Hannah Boast, Chancellor’s Fellow, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Hannah Boast is Chancellor’s Fellow at University of Edinburgh and author of Hydrofictions: Water, Power and Politics in Israeli and Palestinian Literature (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). Hydrofictions was shortlisted for the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment UK and Ireland (ASLE-UKI) Book Prize 2021. Hannah works across cultural geography, political ecology, animal studies and contemporary literary studies, and is Associate Editor of Environmental Humanities. Full profile here.

Zeynep Oguz, Lecturer in Anthropology of Development, School of Social and Political Science

I am interested in how political projects —repressive and liberatory— conspire with earthly forces; and I examine these interactions (or “political geologies”) in the context of fossil fuel extraction, energy transitions, insurgency and counter-insurgency, nationalism, and lately, right-wing and climate movements. I have worked on these topics in Turkey, Cyprus, and the US. My work is in dialogue with political and environmental anthropology, and at the same time, is in conversation with political geography, geophilosophy, political theory, and political ecology. I am particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches around the critical study of fossil fuel politics, energy transitions, state violence, counter-insurgency, territorial politics, histories of violence, and energy futures. Full profile here

Postgraduate Convenors

Alice Barron-Eaves, PhD Student in Creative Writing, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Alice is a writer and PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on using poetry as a method for articulating cultural heritage and place-making within the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire. Alongside her PhD, she is Head Poetry Editor at Forest Publications and Editor of the translated poetry collection ‘Tiny Flames: Voices from Ukraine’, featured on BBC Scotland. Full profile here

Anna Stacey, PhD Student in History of Art, Edinburgh College of Art and Queen Margaret University

Anna’s PhD collaborates with NatureScot to research how visual practices can cultivate relations with Scottish landscapes and species. The research addresses concerns within academia and conservation organisations about increasing levels of human disconnection from nature in the context of the anthropogenic climate and biodiversity crises. Drawing on a range of contemporary visual material, including photography, film and art, Anna’s work asks what role the visual might play in shaping ecological consciousness, care and connection. Through undertaking fieldwork with community conservation projects and deploying visual participatory methods, Anna aims to investigate how relationships with Scottish landscapes and species are formed, mediated, fostered and shared.

Anna has dual affiliation with Queen Margaret University, where she is based in Psychology, Sociology and Education. Alongside her doctoral studies, she is an active member of the Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network and PhD Lab and recently participated in the SGSAH/British Council Earth Scholarships programme. Anna holds an MA in Visual Anthropology from Aarhus University and a BA in Liberal Arts (Spanish) from the University of Leeds. Full profile here.

Postgraduate Mentor

Michelle Bastian, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Humanities, Edinburgh College of Art

Michelle is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Humanities at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh and was recently an Associate Professor II at the University of Oslo in the Oslo School of Environmental Humanities. Her work crosses critical time studies and environmental humanities, with a focus on the role of time in human and more-than-human communities. She was the Editor-in-Chief for Time & Society (SAGE) from 2019-2025 and has been the co-editor of a number of collections including, The Social Life of Time (Time & Society), Field Philosophy and Other Experiments (Parallax) and Participatory Research in More-than-Human Worlds (Routledge). Michelle has recent publications in Environment and Planning E, Environmental Humanities and GeoHumanities. From 2021-2022, Michelle was a Mid-Career Fellow supported by the Independent Social Research Fund, looking at the scientific study of lifecycle events (phenology) and how it could contribute to work in the environmental humanities. She supports the EEHN PhD Lab.