Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane is an Official Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, elected in 2002, and serves as Director of Studies in English. At the University of Cambridge, he holds the position of Professor of Literature and the Environmental Humanities within the Faculty of English. His interdisciplinary work bridges academic scholarship and creative practice, focusing on humanity's relationship with nature, landscape, and ecological systems through writing, film, and collaborative arts.

His educational journey began with an undergraduate degree at Pembroke College, Cambridge, followed by an MPhil at Magdalen College, Oxford. After teaching in Beijing, he completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, where he was appointed to his Fellowship during his doctoral studies.

Macfarlane's research centers on the environmental humanities, exploring geology and the Anthropocene, phenomenology, and virtualisation. He investigates nature and wildness, travel- and place-writing, creaturely life, walking practices, ethics in literature, urban spaces, dwelling, subterranean environments, ruins, land ownership, and apocalyptic cultures. His methodology integrates literary criticism with fieldwork, artistic collaboration, and philosophical inquiry to examine humanity's evolving relationship with the natural world.

His publications reveal a consistent trajectory of blending scholarly rigor with creative expression across multiple media. Books like Underland and The Lost Words demonstrate his signature approach of merging environmental scholarship with poetic form, while films, music albums, and audio dramas extend these themes into auditory and visual realms. This transmedia practice has created a distinctive body of work that transcends traditional academic boundaries, engaging global audiences in conversations about ecological consciousness and the rights of nature.

His major recognitions include:

• Election as Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
• 2017 EM Forster Prize for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 2023 inaugural Weston International Award for career achievement in non-fiction

As an educator, Macfarlane teaches across all three years of Emmanuel College's undergraduate English program, from core 'Practical Criticism' papers to specialized dissertations on contemporary literature. At the Faculty level, he convenes the MPhil course 'Cultures of the Anthropocene' and supervises both MPhil dissertations and PhD candidates, mentoring emerging scholars in environmental humanities through rigorous academic training combined with creative methodologies.

He maintains dynamic creative partnerships with artists including Jackie Morris, Olafur Eliasson, and Stanley Donwood, and musicians such as Johnny Flynn and Cosmo Sheldrake. These collaborations manifest in internationally celebrated projects spanning illustrated books, film narrations, musical albums, and BBC audio dramas, forming a vibrant interdisciplinary network that continually expands the boundaries of environmental storytelling.