— Environmental Humanist

President’s Professor of English and Environmental Humanities.

Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative & Flagship Hub, UNESCO BRIDGES Sustainability Coalition Arizona State University.
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Years
Experience

For over twenty years, I have been working as an environmental and literary humanist.

In 2012, I was honored to serve as President of the Association for the Study Literature and Environment (ASLE), the largest environmental humanities organization in the world with members in 41 countries. From 1999 to 2010, I founded and led the Environment and Culture Caucus of the American Studies Association (ASA-ECC).  I am currently the Secretary General of the Humanities for the Environment Global Network of Humanities Observatories (HfE) and Director of the North American Observatory.

Areas of Expertise

I write on the centrality of the environmental humanities to the sustainability sciences, environmental justice, climate fiction and film, Indigenous literatures and scientific literacies, the rights of nature movement, and the food justice movement.

  • environmental humanities
  • Environmental Justice Critical Studies
  • Environmental Literature and Literary Criticism
  • food justice
  • Global Indigenous Studies
  • Southwest American and Sonoran Desert Studies

Teaching

At Arizona State University, I am a President’s Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Department of English and Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative & the Flagship Hub, UNESCO BRIDGES Sustainability Coalition. My research and teaching has been supported by many awards and grants, including the 2019 Benjamin N. Duke Fellowship at the National Humanities Center. I direct the Environmental Humanities Certificate at Arizona State University and teach undergraduate and graduate courses.

Keynotes, Lectures and Workshops.

I have been honored to keynote conferences and lecture on my work in Australia, China, England, Italy, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and throughout the U.S.

Publications

I am the author and/or co-editor of eight books and special issues.

Service to the profession.

American Studies Association; American Society of Environmental History; The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE); The Modern Language Association; MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States; Environment and Culture Caucus (ECC), American Studies Association; Diversity Caucus, ASLE; Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, Western Literature Association
Bloomsbury Academic; Cambria Press; Cambridge University Press; Continuum Books; Duke University Press; HarperCollins; Lexington Books; MIT Press; New York University Press; Oxford University Press; Routledge Press; Palgrave MacMillan Press; University of Arizona Press; University of Chicago Press; University of Georgia Press; University of Kansas Press; University of Nevada Press; University of Virginia Press; Wilfred Laurier University Press

Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literatures, Culture, and Theory; Concentric; Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment; Elohi: Indigenous Peoples and the Environment; Environmental Ethics; Environmental Humanities; Environmental Justice; Hypatia; ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment; Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies; Journal of Transnational American Studies; Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture; Environmental Humanities; LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory; Modern Fiction Studies; MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States; Neoheliocon; Resilience: A Journal of the Sustainable Humanities; SAIL: Studies in American Indian Literature; Western American Literature

Bullfrog Films; Women Make Movies

In the News

The latest news articles and interviews featuring Joni Adamson.

ASU News

Did 'Soylent Green' get 2022 right?

April 11, 2022

ASLE EcoCast Podcast

On the Shoulders of Giants: Important Voices of Environmental Humanities—Joni Adamson

January 3, 2021

ASU Now

After 50 years of Earth Day, ASU environmental experts see shift to grassroots activism

April 21, 2020

ASU Now

President’s Professor leads first international discussion about the best ways to teach environmental humanities

January 6, 2020

ASU Now

Two new President’s Professors named

December 16, 2019

National Humanities Center

Imagining Desirable Futures in the Midst of Ecological Crises

August 26, 2019

Short films.

Humanities for the Environment

International Project

Dinner 2040

Imagining Sustainable Food Practices in Maricopa County