Symposium: Environmental History V
All conferences and discussions
May 29–31, 2026
Environmental History V
Mythological Machines
The fifth edition of the Environmental History symposium examines the entanglements between humans and the natural world, with particular attention to the role of nonhuman actors in historical and contemporary narratives. Under the title Mythological Machines, this edition turns to myth-making as a critical framework for understanding how environmental histories are produced, transmitted, and transformed.
Mythological Machines proposes examining myth-making as an active process rather than a fixed body of inherited stories. It asks how myths are constructed, circulated, adapted, and instrumentalized across different historical and cultural contexts. It also considers how contemporary technological imaginaries, ecological discourses, and political formations generate new narratives about the future of Earth, the status of life, and the agency of human and nonhuman actors.
Rather than offering a comprehensive typology of environmental myths, the symposium focuses on their operativity. How do myths organize collective perception? How do they make certain forms of environmental action possible while limiting others? How do they translate ecological change into cultural, political, or historical meaning? How do they persist, mutate, or lose force under conditions of crisis?

Photo: © Adrian Deweerdt
Talks and performances from the fifth edition
Talks and performances from the fifth edition
Bringing together researchers, artists, and thinkers, the symposium places myth-making at the center of environmental history. It approaches myth as a material and conceptual force that participates in the formation of worlds, histories, and futures.
Jeanne Etelain
Philosopher and a professor at the Montpellier School of Fine Arts
Grégory Quenet
Professor of Environmental History University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
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