On October 28, 2021, the ENB-funded International Doctorate Program "Rethinking Environment" had its opening ceremony at the University of Augsburg. PhD students, supervisors, and the president of the sponsoring university of Augsburg were all present. Horn player Abigail Sanders provided the artistic prelude. Coordinator Dr. Kirsten Twelbeck led through the program.
For the 20 international doctoral researchers and their 20 project supervisors the opening ceremony of the International Doctorate Program "Rethinking Environment” in the beautiful Law Lecture Hall at the University of Augsburg was the first opportunity to finally meet in person. The humanities and social sciences-oriented college is a cooperation between the University of Augsburg and the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU) and specifically uses the environmental expertise of both locations.
The President of the University of Augsburg, Prof. Dr. Sabine Döring-Manteuffel, emphasized the importance of the Environmental Humanities for future-oriented environmental research at the University of Augsburg in her very personal greeting. Prof. Dr. Christof Mauch, who as director of the Rachel Carson Center also represented the LMU as International Doctorate Program corporation partner, underscored the immense and hopeful potential of environmental research in the humanities and social sciences. The spokespersons for the program, human geographer Prof. Dr. Matthias Schmidt (Augsburg) and historian PD Dr. Simone Müller (Munich), emphasized the great intellectual, social and personal benefits and the professional opportunities that the International Doctorate Program "Rethinking Environment" offers young doctoral students. Prof. Dr. Hubert Zapf, Americanist and founder of the "Cultural Ecology" approach, reviewed the exciting history of this extraordinarily interdisciplinary program. All speakers emphasized that the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary orientation of the International Doctorate Program was an ideal environment for developing innovative ideas for building ecologically sustainable societies.
The event offered plenty of opportunity for networking and an initial exchange of ideas. Following the speeches, the doctoral researchers themselves took the opportunity to present themselves and their projects. Alternating with their supervisors, they explained their individual and subject-specific motivation for taking part in the International Doctorate Program "Re-Thinking Environment". A foretaste of the role of art and culture, which the International Doctorate Program investigates in many of its sub-projects, was offered by the contribution of the horn player Abigail Sanders. Her recordings of whale songs, transcribed into musical notation, were a premiere; the short lecture that followed highlighted the philosophical and technical dimensions of this creative exchange between humans and marine mammals. Afterwards, a vegan-vegetarian buffet provided for the physical well-being of the guests.
Text: Laura Bondl, Kirsten Twelbeck International Doctorate Program “Rethinking Environment”(Environmental Science Center Augsburg)
