The 2025 European Society for Environmental History Conference is being held in Uppsala, Sweden from August 18th – 22nd, 2025. The conference is centered around the theme ‘Climate Histories’ and will be held in-person and online. Registration will remain open until August 12th, and we warmly invite you to participate in the conference in-person or via our online option. The program features a total of 160 sessions and at least 81 sessions will be available virtually.
Keynotes
We are excited to announce that ESEH 2025 will have the following 4 keynote speakers:
Stefania Barca, Heli Huhtamaa, Adam Izdebski, and Gaia Giuliani.
Stefania Barca – Labour in the Great Acceleration era. Stories of human vulnerability and resistance to earth-system changes
Based on research I have developed along the past two decades, now collected in the book Workers of the Earth. Labour, ecology and reproduction in the age of climate change, this talk will offer an unusual narrative of the Great Acceleration era (1950 to present), centred on how waged and unwaged workers – in industrial, domestic and subsistence labour – as well as their organisations and movements have experienced earth-systems change and how they have acted with respect to it.
Heli Huhtamaa – Climate and Nordic History: Detecting impacts and assessing reactions
This talk provides an overview of the rich source material to explore the histories of climate and society in the Nordic countries, captured in both natural and historical archives. Tree-ring records capture signals of growing season climate variability, while detailed administrative records enable the reconstruction of agricultural and socio-economic impacts. However, examining solely quantitative data can hinder us in distinguishing between coincidence and causation. Consequently, this talk also addresses how climatic events materialized at a grassroots level.
Adam Izdebski – Environmental history and public policy: what works and what does not
In my talk, I will introduce some key concepts from the realm of Science for Policy and discuss how they apply to environmental history. I will try to look at the different ways in which members of our community could get involved in policy making, in what roles and with which stakeholders.
Gaia Giuliani – Monsters, catastrophes and the Anthropocene. For a postcolonial critique of violent bio- and necropolitics
Within a critical analysis of logics, ontologies and narratives of the Anthropocene, and a rethinking of the relationship between biopower and colonial and racist narratives, caught in a circular relationship of co-(re)production, my paper is framed in a reflection on the nexus between catastrophe, monstrification and bio/necropolitics that expose certain subjects to premature and violent death, and their eccentric epistemologies resisting violent erasure.
Our Online Program
Registering to our online program includes:
- Access to 81 sessions over 4 days
- Access to 4 keynote speeches
- Access to the streaming of 2 artistic performances
- Screening of several films and short video artworks by filmmakers and artists
- An invitation to participate in 3 interactive artworks created on the Climate Histories theme
- Streaming of conference activities and social events with a host in Uppsala
Activities that are included in the online registration span into the evening (until 9pm Central European Time) on Tuesday the 19th and Wednesday the 20th.
The price for online attendance with 4 days of access to conference activities, from August 19th – 22nd, is 500 SEK (approximately 72 CAD). We very much hope to see you in Uppsala in-person or virtually!
Feel free to send any questions to: info [at] eseh2025 [dot] com
