About the Centre for the GeoHumanities
The Royal Holloway Centre for the GeoHumanities, founded in 2016, is a major interdisciplinary initiative involving arts and humanities scholars, creative practitioners, geographers and partners in the cultural and heritage sectors.
The GeoHumanities describes the interdisciplinary engagement between geographers and arts and humanities disciplines. The use of the term reflects shared interests across these disciplines in scholarship on key geographical concepts such as space, place, landscape, nature, environment and the planetary.
While the emergence of the GeoHumanities reflects current developments in theory, politics, technology and arts practice, they also have a longer intellectual history. The centre’s flagship lecture series, named after Denis E. Cosgrove, reflects both the deep roots of humanities scholarship within geography and the current efflorescence of creative, imaginative and interdisciplinary approaches to its concerns.
The work of the Centre focuses on five themes:
- Environmental imaginations
- Mobilities and the humanities
- Creative interventions: art, environment, atmosphere
- Heritage futures, culture and nature
- Plant humanities
The Centre has s developed a number of formal partnerships nationally and internationally, notably with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the University of Padua Mobilities Humanities Centre, the University of Konkuk, the State University of Rio de Janeiro, and the University of Neuchatel.
The Centre is committed to supporting collaboration between academics and arts practitioners through a programme of Creative Commissions. There have been four rounds of this programme since 2017, each with a distinct theme: ‘Creating earth futures’ (2018-19), ‘Variations on mobility’ (2019-21), ‘Creating diasporic worlds’ (2022) and ‘Arts of the subsurface’ (2025).
The Centre publishes regular newsletters and runs a regular programme of events, including the annual Cosgrove Lecture. Further information about our projects, membership and events may be found on this website.
