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Environmental Discourse Working Group

Panelists at the front of the room listen to an audience member's question during a conference session.

Mission

The Environmental Discourse Working Group brings together scholars across the humanities, social sciences, and allied fields to examine how language, narrative, representation, and communication shape our understanding of environmental challenges.

While sustainability debates often focus on science, engineering, and public health, the Environmental Discourse group emphasizes the creative, critical, curatorial, communicative, and civic dimensions of environmental thought and practice.

Our work explores this through five interlocking themes:

  1.     Worldviews and Ideologies
  2.     Narrative
  3.     Creative Expressions
  4.     Power and Politics
  5.     Persuasion

This sequence reflects the fact that Power, Politics, and Persuasion rely on unstated Worldviews, Ideologies and Narratives. Our current collective work is focused on identifying and exploring environmental environmental keywords, which are terms that are widely used but that have complex, contested, and contradictory meanings.

The working group seeks to foster a collaborative community of researchers and practitioners who can illuminate how discourse influences both the imagination of sustainable futures and the struggles over justice and equity.

Current Activities (2025) 

In 2025, the Environmental Discourse Working Group is launching a series of five roundtable workshops co-convened by Professors Michael Goodhart and Ruth Mostern. Each will center on a short reading and be convened by a faculty member who frames the discussion.

Participants will gather to reflect on related terms and concepts, taking note of the keywords in environmental discourse that we often use in reflection, debate, or agreement. By the end of the year, we aim to build a website that curates these discussions for broader use.

The first roundtable will be convened in November 2025 by Professor Michael Goodhart, followed by four additional sessions in Spring 2026.

These events will be complemented by ongoing concept mapping, literature review, and outreach to develop an official space for our group with shared resources.

Through this process, we seek to create momentum for collaborative work and to make visible the intellectual and creative contributions of discourse-focused environmental research.

Past Environmental Discourse Events

Green Speakeasy - February 20, 2025 - Environmental Discourse

Environmental Discourse: A Pitt research cluster focused on creative, critical, curatorial, communication, and political dimensions of sustainability research and challenges. 

Moderated by Dr. Ruth Mostern, History

3:30-5:30 p.m.
University Club Gold Room

All faculty, staff, and graduate students are welcome to attend. 

Hosted by Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation.

Environmental Discourse in Times of Crises - April 9, 2025

Wednesday, April 9
10 a.m.-2 p.m.
University Club Ballroom A

Please join us in a critical and collaborative session, Environmental Discourse in Times of Crises, as we unite to examine pressing questions about language, communication, and the environments—both physical and metaphorical—that surround us. 

This session provides an opportunity for shared reflection and dialogue as we examine how our environments—whether natural or manmade, tangible or symbolic—shape the way we think, act, and communicate during crises.

Presented by:

  • Aaron Barchowsky, Public Health
  • Melissa Bilec, Mascaro Center
  • Gena Kovalcik, Mascaro Center
  • Ruth Mostern, History
  • Tina Ndoh, Public Health
  • Alison Sanders, Public Health
  • Carissa Slotterback, SPIA
  • John Walsh, French and Italian

Hosted by:

  • Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation
  • Rust to Resilience Center
  • Center for Public Health Practice, School of Public Health
  • Center for Health, Environment, and Engaged Research

About the Working Group

  • Chair: Ruth Mostern, Professor of History and Institute for Spatial History Innovation Director, University of Pittsburgh
  • Current and Past Committee Members:
    • Drew Armstrong (History of Art and Architecture)
    • Frayda Cohen (GSWS)
    • Michael Goodhart (Political Science)
    • Steven LeMieux (English)
    • Tomas Matza (Anthropology)
    • Sarah Moore (Film and Media Studies)
    • Patrick Shirey (Geology and Environmental Science)
    • Cassie Quigley (School of Education)
    • Jeremy Weber (SPIA)


If you’d like to be involved, please contact Ruth Mostern (rmostern@pitt.edu) or stop by 3500 Posvar Hall.