ESEH Conference Report
Members of the Melting Metropolis team at the ESEH Conference.
From left to right: Dr Shelda-Jane Smith, Dr Jon Winder, Dr Rosie Knowles, Dr Daniel Cumming.
Last week, the 2025 edition of the Conference of the European Society for Environmental History took place in Uppsala, Sweden, on the theme of Climate Histories.
Melting Metropolis had a contingent of seven members, who spoke across four different panels.
The interdisciplinary panel “Sweltering Cities: Uncertainty, Energy, Ethics and Experiences of Extreme Urban Heat” – with Shelda-Jane Smith and Rosie Knowles in geography, and Daniel Cumming and Jon Winder in history – took place. All four speakers reflected on their work on past and present narratives and experiences of extreme heat, which they access through research with participants, oral history interviews, or archival research. They shed the spotlight on the faces, voices, and homes of the urbanites who have lived, and continue to live, in overheating cities.
Research Artist Bryony Ella participated in a roundtable discussion on “Environmental Scholarship and Public Engagement” with Cristof Mauch (LMU Munich), Anastasia Sinitsyna (Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation), Nina Vieira (Nova University Lisbon), and Myriel Milicevic (University of Applied Sciences Potsdam). Bryony presented and discussed her practice and work on Melting Metropolis, including her wonderful “A Stand of the Sun” – a sculpture accompanied by an immersive live performance to support sensorial understandings of environmental history research.
In another roundtable discussion on “The Opportunities of Co-Production and Community Engagement for Environmental Researchers,” Community Engagement Lead Anna Ravenscroft discussed climate storytelling alongside with Jennifer Mack (KTH), Lize-Marie Hansen van der Watt (KTH), and Usha Iyer-Raniga (RMIT).
On the last day of the conference, Chloé Duteil presented her research on experiences of extreme heat in Parisian mansard rooms as part of the panel “From the Inside Out: The Environmental and Health Implications of Regulating the Indoor Environment.” The speakers – Fabian Zimmer (TU Berlin), Damiana Salm (Albert Ludwig University Freiburg), Rebecca Wright (Northumbria University), and Hannah Elizabeth (Northumbria University) – discussed their work on the everyday experiences of dusting off, warming up, and cooling down domestic interiors in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Many thanks are due to everyone who came to listen to and exchange with us!
