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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
