Nicolai Skiveren

I am a postdoctoral research fellow currently affiliated with Canterbury University in Aotearoa New Zealand and Aarhus University in Denmark. My research is situated at the intersection of media studies, environmental communication, and audience reception research. Most of my work investigates how media - and cultural texts more generally - shape public perceptions of the environment and the meanings we attach to it. Alongside this focus, I am also interested in ecocriticism, ecocinema, critical human-animal studies, narratology, visual culture, affect theory, models of cultural circulation, ecolinguistics, corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) and a host of digital methods, both quantitative and qualitative. 

Beyond research, I lecture and tutor on the Digital Screen Programme and Cinema Studies at UC, where I teach story development, screenwriting, and film analysis. I have 10+ years of teaching in higher education across various positions at Aarhus University (DK), Aalborg University (DK), VIA University College (DK), South Gate Society (DK), Lincoln University (NZ), and University of Canterbury (NZ).

I am also affiliated with the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies (NZCHAS) at UC, where I recently completed a 2-year project as Principal Investigator (PI) of the project: “Bridging the Gap: Qualitative Empirical Ecocriticism and the Impact of Environmental Narrative”. The project was funded by the Carlsberg Foundation (DK) and explored the reception of food documentaries in Aotearoa New Zealand.

My work has appeared in some of the highest ranking international journals in the humanities, such as Environmental Communication (Q1), Environmental Humanities (Q1), Metacritic (Q1), Extractive Industries and Society (Q1), Green Letters, (Q2; ASLE-UKIP's flagship journal in ecocriticism), Oxford Intersections (Oxford University Press), as well as the edited volume Empirical Ecocriticism: Narratives for Social Change (University of Minnesota Press).

Projects and Research Grants:
2026-2028 (Prinicipal Investigator, PI): "The Afterlives of Stories: Exploring the Long-term Impact of Environmental Narratives." Postdoc reintegration fellowship funded by Carlsberg Foundation (1,945,091 DKK ≈ 514,000 NZD).
2024-2025 (Co-applicant): "N.E.S.T. Research Network: Narratives for Ecological and Sustainable Transition(s)." Network catalyst grant funded by NextGenerationEU (14,000 EUR ≈ 28,000 NZD).

2023-2025 (Principal Investigator, PI): "Bridging the Gap: Qualitative Empiritical Ecocriticism and the Impact of Environmental Narrative." Post-doc internationalisation fellowship funded by Carlsberg Foundation (900,000 DKK ≈ 210,00 NZD).
2019-2022 (Main Applicant): "Cinematic Waesthetics: An Investigation of the Aesthetics of Waste in Contemporary Film and Television." PhD Scholarship funded by Aarhus University (944,000 DKK ≈ 250,000 NZD)

2016-2018 (Main Applicant): "Distinguished Masters." Scholarship funded by Peter and Emma Thomsen Foundation (100,000 DKK ≈ 28,000 NZD)