EH Blog

Chris Ingraham is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and on the core faculty of the Environmental Humanities Graduate Program at the University of Utah. His work as an active teacher and researcher is in the areas of media aesthetics, environmental communication, and rhetorical theory. Generally, he tries to draw on the insights of these fields to think about the material, aesthetic, and affective practices that configure the environments we create and inhabit. Before becoming an academic, he worked for several years as a freelance writer. Though the arts remain central to his interests, his academic training across the humanities commits him to cross-disciplinary thinking with the belief that we should bring all available knowledge to the problems we're trying to understand.

Ayja Bounous grew up at the base of Little Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, where the rhythmic pulse of the seasons was as much a part of life as breathing. It was not until her adult years, however, that she realized how her whole world revolved around Wasatch snow—from the places she loved, to the activities that she enjoyed doing, to the relationships in her life. She earned a Master's of Arts in Environmental Humanities from the University of Utah in 2017, and went on to publish her master’s thesis, Shaped by Snow: Defending the Future of Winter, with Torrey House Press in 2019.

Can art and humanities save the Great Salt Lake? On September 23-24, we explored this question with local artists, poets, journalists, community organizers, Tribal leaders, dancers, communications professionals, scholars, and of course, the many concerned community members who care about Great Salt Lake and a livable future. The Environmental Humanities Symposium on Great Salt Lake: Lessons of Art, Action, and Culture was a great success and we’re so grateful to all our speakers, event partners, and attendees.

Environmental Humanities has opened the application round for the next Research Professor for the 23/24 term. Rachel Mason Dentinger, the current EH Research Professor, will give a talk on 11/22 at 4p.

Dr. Gregory E. Smoak recently gave the keynote talk on Utah’s water history at the Utah State Historical Society Conference. Greg is the director of the American West Center and the Utah Humanities State Scholar for Think Water Utah. His essay “Utah Waterways” examines Utah’s water history and contemporary challenges, including the crisis at Great Salt Lake. He has an extensive background in Native history, public history, and environmental history in the West.