Podcast Launch: “Off the Road: A Podcast about the Environmental Humanities”
New Podcast by members of the project Project members Gilberto Mazzoli and Jannis Buschky have just launched their new podcast, which explores the environmental humanities through conversations with scholars working at the intersections of history, literature, culture, and ecology. The podcast tells meaningful stories and conversations about environmental change and human relationships with the natural […]
“Valleys of Ashes: Weird Pastoral in Early Narratives of Automobility” Talk by Timo Müller, July 2nd 2026
Talk Timo Müller will present parts of his research on the pastoral aesthetics of early automobility at the annual conference of the Modernist Studies Association, held together with the British Assocation for Modernist Studies. The conference, titled “Weird Modernisms,” explores alternative ways of thinking about modernist cultural production. Timo Müller’s talk “Valleys of Ashes: Weird […]
“Environmental Humanities: Putting Scholarship, Representation, and Practice in Dialogue,” Workshop, May 7th – 8th 2026
Workshop Members of the OffRoad project helped organize the workshop “Environmental Humanities: Putting Scholarship, Representation, and Practice in Dialogue.” The workshop explores and promotes interdisciplinary research in the environmental humanities, a relatively new field that investigates the relationship between nature and society. Naturally, the environmental humanities are also a productive source of knowledge and […]
“Off the Road: Researching Automobility and the Environment,” Guest Lecture by Timo Müller, March 20th 2026
Guest Lecture We cordially invite you to Timo Müller’s guest lecture at the “Crafting the Future Through Interdisciplinary Grants” workshop, jointly organized by the Department of American Studies at the University of Konstanz and the Department of Music at the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria. At the workshop, Timo Müller will speak about insights […]
‘A Venture into the Void of Un-vironmental Thought’, Talk by Natalie Dederichs (University of Cologne), 29th January 2026
Lecture We warmly invite you to the lecture “A Venture into the Void of Un-vironmental Thought” by Dr. Natalie Dederichs. When: Thursday, January 29, 5:00–6:30 p.m. Where: University of Konstanz, Room H 305 Dr. Natalie Dederichs’s research focuses on the study of literary texts that engage with environmental issues, particularly at the intersection of ecocriticism and […]
Timo Müller (University of Konstanz) Presents the Off the Road Project at FISH Online Panel on Automobile Infrastructures, 9th December 2025
Talk The OffRoad Project is represented at an online panel hosted by the Federation of Infrastructure Scholars in the Humanities (FISH). The event, co-organized by Caroline Levine, takes place on December 9 from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. (ET) and is held via Zoom. The panel focuses on automobile infrastructures and brings together three leading scholars in […]
The OffRoad Project Hosts “Infrastructure | Time | Aesthetics: An Exploratory Workshop”, 4th–5th December 2025
Workshop We are pleased to announce the exploratory workshop “Infrastructure | Time | Aesthetics“, held on 4–5 December 2025 at the Bischofsvilla. Everyone is warmly invited to attend. The workshop assembles scholars from across the humanities to explore new ways of thinking about sociocultural dimensions infrastructure, with a focus on questions of time and aesthetics. […]
Research Update from Gilberto Mazzoli on the Environmental History of Roadkill
Blog post Gilberto Mazzoli, postdoctoral scholar in North American Environmental History, has recently published a new blog post for the OffRoad project, presenting ongoing research on the environmental history of roadkill. The post, titled “Collisions: Driving Through Digital Humanities in Search of Roadkill,” is available here. Last year, Gilberto was awarded the ESEH–Gale Fellowship in […]
Interdisciplinary Workshop “Environmental Humanities Meets History of Knowledge” at the University of Konstanz, 20th-21st November 2025
Workshop Join us for the interdisciplinary workshop “Environmental Humanities meets History of Knowledge” on 20–21 November 2025 at the University of Konstanz. The event features two hybrid keynote lectures open to everyone: Prof. Dr. Florian Sprenger on “Virtuelle Environments – Roboter als Umgebungsmaschinen” and Prof. Dr. Stephanie Zehnle on “‘Jungle Bells’: Ecology, Metallurgy and Secrecy […]
The OffRoad Project Welcomes Pascal Ehrlich as a Doctoral Researcher, 1st August 2025
Welcome! We welcome Pascal Ehrlich to the ERC Off the Road research group at Uni Konstanz. His research focuses on citizenship and automobility in American fiction, examining how the car, as a literary motif, shaped concepts of American citizenship. His dissertation, “The Engines of Democracy: How the Car Influenced American Citizenship,” argues that driving was frequently […]