Ned Schaumberg

I am currently the Seedbox Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Arlington, having completed my PhD in English at the University of Washington in June 2018. My research focuses on representations of water in literature, and the ways literature can offer insights about water and its flow that are difficult to perceive directly. Literature is particularly interesting in this regard because can both describe water in writing, while also showcasing other individual efforts to do so. This meta-awareness is especially useful because water has wide-ranging and overlapping effects on bodies, cultures, and landscapes that can be simultaneously immediate and protracted, both obvious and subtle. 

As a teacher, I help students explore how cultural values and disciplinary structures shape environmental experience, policy, and action. Key to this is effective writing and communication–writing effectively about environmental issues means considering multiple cultural perspectives and drawing on evidence from divergent academic disciplines. Working with students to navigate these intersections prepares them for work in environmental careers. More importantly, it encourages students to consider and encounter ideas, disciplines, and perspectives quite distant from their own, fostering a sense of shared (if complex) environmental citizenship instead of imagining a “battle for the environment” between the forces of good and evil.