Beyond Despair: Foreign Language Education, Environmental Humanities, and a Pedagogy of Resilience

In the talk, Uwe Küchler (Professor at University of Tübingen) challenges the prevailing approach in German teaching materials that fixates on environmental catastrophe, urgency, and individual behavioral changes. These materials inadvertently channel students' perspectives towards despair. Instead, his talk explores the environmental humanities and an interdisciplinary approach as a foundation for reimagining foreign language education. The presentation draws on related disciplines—ecolinguistics, ecocriticism, critical pedagogy, and environmental psychology. The goal is to illuminate how students can become active agents in transforming environmental communication. This means creating opportunities for meaningful engagement and a more hopeful understanding of ecological challenges. Drawing on his recent book Environmental Literacy and the Teaching of English (Narr 2025), Uwe Küchler argues for foreign language learning to move beyond despairing narratives and become a critical space for environmental awareness.