Event Details

Please join us for the next LICA Research Seminar where we will discuss the theme ‘Environment’ across three different disciplines. We hope to see many of you there.

Speakers:

Professor Liz Oakley-Brown, English and Creative Writing

‘Shakespeare’s Soil Imaginaries: Creative Encounters with Climate Emergencies’

Soil — that quotidian compound of organic matter vital for all life on earth and under threat today — confounds concepts of linear time. While scientists often tell us that ‘In optimum conditions and a mild climate, it takes between 200-400 years to form 1cm of new soil’ (Hernandez-Soriano and Junod 2014: para 5), that singular measurement is comprised of timelines as entangled as the materials that make up the loamy layers. In the words of Susan L. Brantley, ‘soils are defined not only by rock particles but also by minerals, nutrients, organic matter, biota, and water…each characterized by lifetimes…that vary from hundreds of millions of years to minutes’ (1454). With this striking non-human temporal weave in view, and developing earlier research such as Jonathan Gil Harris’ Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare (2009) alongside Hillary Eklund’s edited collection Ground-Work: English Renaissance Literature and Soil Science (2017), my short talk argues that Shakespearean texts are crucial creative works for raising awareness of and taking action against the twenty-first century’s global soil crisis.

Dr Karen Lloyd, Institute of Social Futures

‘Viewing Stations: Environmental Change and the Rights of Nature in the English Lake District Cultural Landscape’

This short talk addresses the question of whether the 2017 UNESCO Lake District Cultural Landscape site is ‘a sort of national property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy' (Wordsworth, 1810) or a landscape that is failing the more than human world. Refuges for wild species are accepted practices in continental Europe, whereas historic private land enclosures in the UK have created a deeply divided approach to the preservation of nature. How far are we prepared to remove ourselves in order to give the more than human world the space to thrive and survive?

Karen Lloyd is a Senior Researcher and writer in residence with Lancaster University’s Future Places Centre, author of Abundance: Nature in Recovery (Bloomsbury, 2021) (Wainwright Prize longlisted) and contributor and co-editor of The Wolf in Culture, Nature, History (Boydell, 2023). Her work has been widely published, most recently in Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of our Climate Crisis (Yale University Press and The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 2024).

Dr Mirian Calvo, Lancaster School of Architecture

‘Integrating Sustainable Soil Management into Urban Planning through Collaborative Design, Innovation, and Education’

The IAA Local-Soils Project aims to integrate sustainable soil management practices into local planning policies to enhance environmental and societal outcomes. The project addresses the undervaluation and damage of soil ecosystems in construction and urban development, emphasising their roles in climate change mitigation, flood risk reduction, and biodiversity support.

Transdisciplinary approach: The project involves a cross-sector collaboration combining soil systems science with design research and communities of practice. It includes a partnership with two Local Authorities—Lancaster and Cornwall,—alongside industry stakeholders. The methodology employs participatory design methods involving construction and sustainability experts in co-developing draft model local planning policies through co-design workshops and focus groups. The project is grounded in previous research by the Soils Task Force.

Findings: Preliminary analysis from focus groups highlighted key themes such as the environmental benefits of soil functions, barriers to sustainable practices, and the importance of stakeholder collaboration. All these insights informed the design of the co-design policy workshops, in which we identified the need for early planning, policy integration, and education to overcome economic and practical challenges. The co-design workshops resulted in policy recommendations focused on soil sustainability for natural environments, water management, and the recognition of soil as a valuable resource. Key components include soil assessments, resource planning, stakeholder engagement, and practical monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.