New EXIST seminar video: “Emotions in Sustainability Education” with Oleksandra Khalaim


The latest EXIST seminar video “Emotions in Sustainability Education: from Emotional Labour Among University Teachers to Climate Anxiety Among University Students” with Oleksandra Khalaim is now released, watch and share below. Thanks to all you joining us this spring semester and all of you that presented!

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/FZWFNBMHfk0

Moderated by Mats Målkvist, CHS. Recorded online and at CEMUS, Uppsala University, May 8, 2025.

The Existential, Environmental Humanities seminar, EXIST, is a collaboration between CEMUS, Centre for Environment and Development Studies, CRS, Centre for Multidisciplinary Research on Religion and Society, CHS, Centre for Health and Sustainability, and Sofia Oreland, Department of Theology, Uppsala University.


May 8 at 12.00-13.00

Oleksandra Khalaim Emotions in Sustainability Education: from Emotional Labour Among University Teachers to Climate Anxiety Among University Students

Moderated by CHS

As Dr. Avita Rath from the University of Edinburgh states in her blog, “In academia, we’re often expected to suppress our true selves, conform to a narrow definition of “professionalism,” and mask the real emotions that shape our experiences. This unseen, rarely acknowledged labor is a storm brewing beneath the surface of our work, threatening to drown us in a sea of burnout and exhaustion.” In our post-normal world full of wicked sustainability challenges, sustainability education turns to an immersive experience of (sometimes desperate) attempts to fix systems that have already passed their points of no-return. The seminar is devoted to a “grey zone” of emotions in sustainability education: what do students demand, how do teachers cope, and what kind of support we all need while crossing the post-normality ocean on our academic boat altogether.

Bio
Oleksandra has been working as a lecturer, educational developer, and researcher in the Centre of Health and Sustainability (CHS) being based at Campus Gotland since 2019. Her fields of interest include sustainability education, climate change as wicked problem, and future thinking as a part of Green Competences EU framework. Her most recent research (2021-2024) is about eco-emotions (climate anxiety) in higher education. She has been running a series of educational projects on how to use applied drama and gaming techniques in sustainability teaching for Campus Gotland staff in 2023-2025. She is an active member of ENLIGHT network trying to develop an interdisciplinary pedagogical toolbox for sustainability teaching across universities in Europe.

https://www.uu.se/en/contact-and-organisation/staff?query=N19-1962


See coming EXIST seminars here.