Environmental Humanities: Cultures, Theories, and Methods
| Module title | Environmental Humanities: Cultures, Theories, and Methods |
|---|---|
| Module code | EASM170 |
| Academic year | 2019/0 |
| Credits | 30 |
| Module staff | (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 11 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 16 |
|---|
Module description
This team taught module considers the relationship between the production of culture and ecology, and recent critical and theoretical developments in the environmental humanities. Interdisciplinary in approach, this module is suited to students with an interest in the environment, its critical conceptualisation, and its representation in literary and film studies. The module is concerned with emerging approaches to urban environments, notions of the ‘anthropocene’, and resource cultures.
Module aims - intentions of the module
This module aims to trace converging and diverging approaches to the environmental humanities, in a diverse range of cultural products, to highlight the socio-ecological, and political nature of critical perspectives in environmental humanities. Since the turn of the millennium the environment has been more broadly conceptualised in the humanities not just as external to understanding social and historical change, but as vitally integrated into our cultural forms, modalities of thought, and social formations. Focused on a range of genres (fiction, non-fiction essay, poetry, eco-film and documentary), you will investigate key debates, concepts, and moments in the development of an emerging ecocritical consciousness.
In this module you will examine global eco-literatures and cinemas, which are characterised by their commitment to narrating the environment in all its forms: from urban settings, to marine narratives, and climate change fictions, and how a wide range of directors and writers intersect issues of class, race and gender with environmental crises and transformations. Conceptually, the module will enable you to study the intersection between complex critical-theoretical debates across disciplines, taking account of the global dimension of film and literatures concerned with the politics of the environment. The module will provide advanced training in deploying critical concepts from the field of environmental humanities, in relation to literature and film, by using bibliographic and electronic resources.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Demonstrate an advanced ability to analyse literary and film texts using appropriate formal and critical terminologies
- 2. Demonstrate an advanced appreciation of the critical debates around issues of socio-environmental change and how they relate to film and literary narratives
- 3. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of issues of representation and environmental aesthetics in relation to literary and cinematic form
- 4. Demonstrate an advanced capacity to connect the formal analysis of literature and film to broader socio-ecological theoretical and conceptual questions
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. Demonstrate an advanced and autonomous proficiency in the close formal, thematic, and generic analysis of different genres of film and literature of cultures of the environment
- 6. Demonstrate a sophisticated and intellectually mature ability to analyse literature and films of different geographical locations
- 7. Demonstrate advanced and autonomous skills in the research and evaluation of relevant critical and theoretical concepts in relation to the study of literature and film
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 8. Through seminar work, demonstrate advanced communication skills and team working skills
- 9. Through essay-writing, demonstrate advanced research and bibliographic skills and the ability to construct a coherent, substantiated argument
- 10. Through the planning and organisation of research projects, demonstrate time-management skills and independent thinking
Syllabus plan
Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:
- the environmental humanities
- postcolonial ecocriticism and world-ecology studies
- ecofeminism
- queer ecology
- climate change
- resource scarcity
- commodity fictions
- eco-cinema and eco-literature
- animal/species studies and extinction
- environmental resilience and vulnerability
- petro-modernity.
Introducing the Environmental Humanities and Key Debates
- Urban Environments
- Commodity/ Resource Frontiers and Fictions
- Representing the Anthropocene
‘Environmental Humanities in Film and Fiction’ - Roundtable
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | 270 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 22 | Seminars |
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 8 | Film Screenings |
| Guided Independent Study | 20 | Study Group meetings and preparation |
| Guided Independent Study | 90 | Seminar reading and preparation |
| Guided Independent Study | 160 | Research and essay preparation |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close reading analysis, and sequence analysis | 25 | 2500 words | 1-10 | Feedback sheet with opportunity for tutorial follow-up. |
| Essay | 75 | 5000 words | 1-10 | Feedback sheet with opportunity for tutor follow up |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close reading analysis, and sequence analysis | Close Reading Analysis | 1-10 | Referral/deferral period |
| Essay | Essay | 1-10 | Referral/deferral period |
Re-assessment notes
If students are referred/deferred for the 2500 close reading analysis or for the 5000 word essay, they will be required to write an essay that meets the length of the original assessment. They should choose for the close reading extract an excerpt from the list of primary texts given on the assessment rubric, or for the essay, an essay question from the assessment rubric. If the essay is a referral, students cannot choose the same question they attempted the first time.
Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.
Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 50%.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Indicative Primary Reading:
- Miguel Ángel Asturias Men of Maize (1949)
- Russell Hoban Riddley Walker (1980)
- Karen Tei Yamashita Through the Arc of the Rainforest (1990)
- Patrick Chamoiseau Texaco (1992)
- Paulo Lins City of God (1997)
- Hwang Sok-yong Familiar Things (2011)
- Samantha Schweblin Fever Dream (2014)
- Rita Indiana Tentacle (2018)
Indicative Film Viewing:
- The Damned (1963)
- Princess Mononoke (1997)
- Chasing Ice (2012)
- Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
- Death by a Thousand Cuts (2016)
- Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2018)
Note that the above primary readings and film viewings are indicative lists only, and that the list for the current year will be available on ELE.
Selected Secondary Texts:
- Alaimo, Stacy. Bodily Natures : science, environment, and the material self. Indiana UP, 2010.
- Bonneuil, Christophe and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. The Shock of the Anthropocene : The Earth, History and Us. Verso, 2017.
- Brereton, Pat. Environmental Ethics and Film. Routledge, 2016.
- Buell, Lawrence. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
- Cubitt, Sean. EcoMedia. Rodopoi, 2005.
- Dawson, Ashley. Extreme Cities: the peril and promise of urban life in the age of climate change. Verso, 2018.
- Davis, Mike. Planet of slums. Verso, 2006.
- DeLoughrey, Elizabeth and George B. Handley. Postcolonial Ecologies. Oxford UP, 2011.
- Gaard, Greta and Patrick D. Murphy. Ecofeminist literary criticism: theory, interpretation, pedagogy. University of Illinois Press, 1998.
- Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago UP, 2016.
- Guha, Ramachandra and J. Martinez-Alier, Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South. Earthscan, 1997.
- Heise, Ursula K., Jon Christensen, and Michelle Niemann eds. The Routledge companion to the environmental humanities. Routledge, 2017.
- Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. Ecofeminism. Zed Books, 1993.
- Moore, Jason W. Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. Verso, 2015.
- Mortimer-Sandilands, Catriona, and Bruce Erickson eds. Queer ecologies : sex, nature, politics, desire. Indiana UP, 2010.
- Morton, Timothy. The Ecological Thought. Harvard UP, 2010.
- Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the mastery of nature. Routledge, 1993.
- Szeman, Imre et al. Energy Humanities: An Anthology. John Hopkins UP, 2017.
- Westling, Louise ed. The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Environment. Cambridge UP, 2013.
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
Web based and electronic resources available through the library;
- Ariel: a review of international English literature
- Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
- Cinema Journal
- Contemporary Literature
- Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment
- Green Letters
- ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment
- Studies in Documentary Film
- ELE:
| Credit value | 30 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 15 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 7 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 11/02/2019 |
| Last revision date | 04/03/2019 |