Call for Papers: Environment and Society in East-Central Europe Conference (ESIEE), University of Ostrava, Czechia, 28-29 May 2026

Call for Papers: Environment and Society in East-Central Europe Conference (ESIEE), University of Ostrava, Czechia, 28-29 May 2026

 

The Environment and Society in East-Central Europe Conference 2026 invites scholars from history, environmental studies, sociology, geography, and related disciplines to explore how humans have shaped—and been shaped by—the environment in the East-Central European region. Does East-Central Europe have a distinguished environmental past? If so, how? 

To answer these pressing questions, this conference provides a forum for interdisciplinary exchange, encourages collaboration, and fosters new approaches to understanding the historical and contemporary environmental challenges of the region. 

The 2026 ESIEE Conference welcomes papers and panels addressing a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:

 

Environmental change and resource use

Urban and rural transformations

Environmental activism and civil society

Borders, cross-border regions, and environmental cooperation

Rivers, floods, droughts, and water regimes in long-term perspective

Forests, woodlands, and commons management

Industrialization and the environment beyond pollution

War, militarization, and ecological transformations

Socialist environmentalism: concepts, actors, and strategies

Technology and nature: envirotechnical systems in history

Historical geography and environmental history interactions

Environmental knowledge and the Enlightenment revolution in forestry

“The State Against Nature”: governance and transformation in the 18th–19th centuries

Narratives of “slow hope” in times of crisis

Tracing the roots of East-Central European environmental history

Environmental well-being in East-Central Europe

 

Keynote speakers: Stephen Brain, Mississippi State University, USA, and Doubravka Olšáková Charles University, Czechia

Submission Information:

Individual Papers: Submit your 300-word abstract and page-long bio by 31.1.2026 to cesh(at)osu(dot)cz

Complete Sessions, Workshops, and Interventions: Submit your 300-500 word session abstract with information on approach, goal, contributors’ role, and page-long bio by 31.1.2026 to cesh(at)osu(dot)cz

ESIEE 2026 is supported by the European Society for Environmental History, Slovak Historical Society, University of Ostrava, and the Department of History at the University of Ostrava