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INTRODUCTION TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES 25
existing harmoniously with nature in which it is to be embedded.”” The focus of
the workshop and communal space planned for the uplands of the Balaton will
be fieldwork, research and the development of education. The aim of their research
project “Landscape Futuring” is to connect diverse disciplines such as ecology,
design, art and the natural sciences, for the development of educational and
research methodologies so as to promote future research, and to devise artistic
exercises.”®
The Ecological and Cultural Platform Szabadonbalaton [Balaton freely]” is based
on the belief that “The Balaton is more than water: the lake, its shores and
environment constitute a complex living system.”*? The platform combines a focus
on ecological issues with research into the relation between the Balaton region and
the built environment, as well as with contemporary artistic actions. (The chapter
Nature, Art, Activism is about the relationship between the arts and EH.)
Research into environmental history had a significant role among the antecedents
of EH. This holds true of EH’s appearance in Hungary as well: the research project
Knowledge, Landscape, Nation and Empire examines the practices of transforming
landscapes in the Balkans and in Hungary between 1850 and 1945 from the
perspectives of cultural, social and economic history integrated with environmental
and climate history.*' One of the research team members, Rébert Balogh, has
contributed to this volume with the paper Green History? What is the Role of
Historians Works on Problems of the Environment in the Past and What Could It
Become?
Last but not least is the Environmental Humanities Research Group of the
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Pécs University. The research team was
hatched in the Ethnography—Cultural Anthropology Department of PTE where
— from its very start — the study of the human being and its natural environment
has enjoyed high priority. Since the teaching staff has been trained in a range of
disciplines besides ethnography and anthropology, their common interests and
inter- and transdisciplinary everyday practice led logically to the foundation of
the research group. At present, the group consists of ethnographers, anthropologists,
a historian, a geographer, a social policy expert, a political scientist, a biologist and
ecologist and a sociologist, who conduct several joint projects, one of which is this
Reader involving several Group members (Pál Géza Balogh, Judit Farkas, Gábor
Máté, Anna Varga).
https://mag.mome.hu
https://mag.mome.hu/#landscape/kutatas
www.szabadonbalaton.hu
www.szabadonbalaton.hu/kontextus.html
Full title: Knowledge, Landscape, Nation, and Empire. Practices of Cognizing and Transforming
the Landscape in Hungary and the Balkans, 1850-1945. www.environmentalhistory.hu