Call for interest

The Catholic Church and the Environment – CATCH, Funded by the European Union (ERC ADG CATCH, Grant Number 101199683).

The ERC research project CATCH - The Catholic Church and the Environment is hiring 5 PhD students, 2 Postdocs, and 1 research assistant. We are looking for committed researchers, passionate co-workers, and dedicated scholars who wish to join our team and build together our new Radical Environmental Humanities Hub.

CATCH

CATCH will provide the first comprehensive environmental history of the Catholic Church from the 1960s—when Vatican II coincided with new social and ecological concerns—to the papacy of Pope Francis. While scholars have explored religion and the environment from theological perspectives, the historical relationship between the Church and environmental politics remains largely understudied.

CATCH addresses this gap by examining the Church’s environmental engagement at multiple scales: its role in international environmental governance and UN debates, as well as regional case studies across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

CATCH is a non-confessional research project. Participation does not require any religious affiliation or belief, nor does the project privilege any confessional perspective.

The Radical Environmental Humanities Hub

The climate crisis, pandemics, wars, and democratic backsliding highlight the need for new forms of interdisciplinary knowledge. Fields such as Environmental Humanities (EH) and Political Ecology (PE) offer complementary approaches to understanding socio-ecological challenges, yet they rarely intersect.

REH2 seeks to bridge this divide by connecting EH and PE and amplifying perspectives from the Global South and non-Anglophone contexts. Hosted at CISPAC, the hub will foster an international and interdisciplinary environment dedicated to research, education, and public engagement on major ecological challenges. REH2 aims to become a leading center for Environmental Humanities and Political Ecology in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe.

IMPORTANT:

Please send your application to marco.armiero@usc.es as one PDF file. Name the file with your last name and the label of the position you are applying for (for instance: ArmieroPhD2). In the subject of the email, please write “expression of interest CATCH [code of the position you are applying for].  To receive full consideration, please submit your application by April 25.