Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures

In this episode, Jason König and Jonathan Westaway interview Caroline Schaumann about her work on the history of mountaineering. Caroline is Professor of German Studies at Emory University. She combines an interest in ecocriticism and the environmental humanities with expertise in the history of exploration and mountaineering. Her 2020 book Peak Pursuits: The Emergence of Mountaineering in the Nineteenth Century (Yale University Press) offers a reassessment of the history of explor...

In this episode, Jason König and Jonathan Westaway interview Peter Hansen about his research on mountain history in the Alps and the Himalayas. Peter Hansen is Professor of History and Director of International and Global Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. He has been a leading figure in the recent expansion of interest in mountaineering history. His 2013 book The Summits of Modern Man: Mountaineering after the Enlightenment explored the idea of the summit position—i...

In this episode, Jason König and Jonathan Westaway interview Lachlan Fleetwood about his research on Himalayan history. Lachlan is a historian of science, empire, geography and environment. He completed his PhD in History at the University of Cambridge in 2020, and has subsequently held research fellowships at University College Dublin, Yale and Munich. His first book, Science on the Roof of the World: Empire and the Remaking of the Himalaya, was published by Cambridge University Press in May...

In this episode Jonathan Pitches and Jason König interview Simone Kenyon about her work as a practice researcher, performer, artist and producer. We focus especially on her work as the choreographer and artistic creator of the place-sensitive performance piece Into the Mountain, inspired and informed by the lyrical and embodied prose of Nan Shepherd’s 1974 book, The Living Mountain. Building on six years of preparatory work Into the Mountain drew on the input of nearly 100 women, many o...

In this episode, Jason König and Jonathan Westaway interview Alexandra Cotofana about her work on the mountains of Romania. Alexandra is a cultural anthropologist and Assistant Professor at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. She is the author of Xenophobic Mountains. Landscape sentience reconsidered in the Romanian Carpathians, (2022), and co-editor of Sentient Ecologies: Xenophobic Imaginaries of Landscape (2022). The episode begins with a discussion of Alexandra’s experience of growing in...