Climate change is disrupting ecosystems, displacing people, threatening human and non human lives. This unprecedented environmental crisis, which is also a crisis of the imagination, forces us to rethink the way we live on this planet.

We embrace the environmental humanities as our focus to promote an interdisciplinary and transcultural endeavour, a new alliance between humanities, social life, and natural sciences. We draw on Ca’ Foscari’s international reputation as a school where forty languages and their numerous related cultures are investigated and as a pioneer in climate studies.

Our vantage point is that of Venice as a city vulnerable to sea-level rise but also as a historic crossroads of civilizations with a rich tradition of sharp thinking and creative measures aimed at a balanced ecosystem and a plural society. These lessons from the past inspire our vision of Venice as a global model of sustainable and equitable cohabitation among peoples and other life forms.

Image: Adapting, 2019 © Andi Arnovitz