New Global Environment Issue Guest Edited by Lijuan Klassen and Christof Mauch
“Imagining Planetary Health, Wellbeing and Habitability: Perspectives from the Environmental Humanities”
09.06.2026
The newest issue of Global Environment just came out. It was guest edited by PhD candidate Lijuan Klassen and RCC Director Christof Mauch.
In the editorial, “Imagining Planetary Health, Wellbeing and Habitability: Perspectives from the Environmental Humanities,” Klassen and Mauch grapple with the planetary health framework, a transdisciplinary research field and social movement that holistically examines the effect of “human disruptions to Earth’s natural systems on human health and all life on Earth.”
They write that planetary health has made considerable progress, though official reports use singular definitions for terms that downplay their associations with scientific colonial legacies and raise questions of power and inequality. For instance, “health” is treated as a measurable, universal parameter, while “human civilisation” is framed as a unified agent. Klassen and Mauch argue that perspectives from the environmental humanities can serve as a balancing force to these blind spots by incorporating disparate visions of health and well-being.
They introduce the contributors to this special issue under four main sections—geneaologies, narratologies, sense of place and planet, and food relations—highlighting their interdisciplinary focuses that span genres from visual essays to philosophical critiques.
The issue emerged from the October 2024 planetary health workshop convened by Klassen and Mauch.