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Environmental Humanities: Futures

Module description

Who gets to imagine and act for the future? Today global capitalism, driven by Western models of progress and growth, foretells disastrous climate and environmental collapse on a planetary scale. However, alongside the drama of collapse, we find alternative narratives of transformation, reorganisation, hope and regeneration. On this module you will explore critical approaches to the “sustainability or collapse” dualism. You will unpack the problems with current sustainability frameworks based on modernisation theory, explore anti-colonial approaches, and the recent work that foregrounds kinship with non-human others. We will work together to devise alternative imaginaries for the future, acquiring the creative tools and critical thinking skills for understanding old and new possibilities for living on a damaged planet now and in the future.  

Module aims - intentions of the module

We are living in the future’s past, so what is our legacy to the generations of human and more-than-human beings that will come after us? On this module, you will investigate contrasting narratives of time and history; lived experiences of societal and ecological disaster; the origins of the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development; and ideas of sustainable governance for the future. You will consider these developments by understanding historical contexts including colonial violence; science, evolution and extinction discourse; and how the prospect of nuclear war shaped planetary-thinking. In addition, you will also get to examine alternative narratives of the relationship between past, present and future. You will apply anti-colonial and anti-extractivist thinking to the challenges of cultural, political and environmental change. You will explore the possibility for political reorganisation, the power of collective action and resistance, and how thinking with more-than-human beings can create alternative imaginaries. Aiming to find hope in difficult times, we shall work together to arrive at different, unconventional and perhaps radical ways of thinking about and for the future.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Knowledge and critical understanding of key concepts and themes of the module, their historical contexts and possible future development.
• 2. An ability to evaluate critically key concepts and principles (e.g. sustainability, governance, cosmology) and demonstrating an ability to apply them in different contexts (seminar discussion, written assignments etc.)

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Demonstrate understanding of the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of Western knowledge in order to better understand alternative indigenous knowledge and future imaginaries
• 4. Knowledge and critical understanding of key approaches and methods in the interdisciplinary field of environmental humanities

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. An ability to assess and communicate complex arguments and debates
• 6. To analyse and interpret interdisciplinary research to environmental problems.

Syllabus plan

You will study a range of topics from a range of disciplinary perspectives. While the syllabus will change from year to year, some or all of the following topics will be included:

• Grief - ecological baselines and loss of nature
• European Improvement and the domination of nature in the Age of Enlightenment
• Colonialism and biopolitics in the nineteenth century
• Nuclear futures: risk, radioactivity and politics in the twentieth century
• The Future “We” Want. Can development be sustainable? 
• Anthropocene futures acting with more-than-human beings
• Indigenous cosmologies
• Inter-generational justice - the long-view
• Against slow violence - community activism
• Hope

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Dipesh Chakrabarty ‘Climate History’ Critical Inquiry 35 (2009): 197–222.
• Lesley Head, Hope and Grief in the Anthropocene (London, 2016)
• Richard Grove, Green Imperialism (Cambridge, 1995)
• Barbara Rose Johnston, “Nuclear Disaster: The Marshall Islands Experience and Lessons for a Post-Fukushima World.” In Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities: Post-colonial Approaches, edited by Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Jill Didur, and Anthony Carrigan, 140–61. (New York 2015)
• Carolyn Merchant Earthcare: Women and the Environment (London 1996)
• Leanne Betasamosake Simpson A short history of the blockade (Alberta, 2015)
• Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge 2011)
• Lousley, Cheryl. “Global Futures Past: Our Common Future, Postcolonial Times, and Worldly Ecologies.” Resilience 4, nos. 2–3 (2017): 21–42.
• Susie O’Brien. “Resilience Stories: Narratives of Adaptation, Refusal, and Compromise.” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities, vol. 4, no. 2–3, 2017, pp. 43–65

Key words search

Environment, Humanities, Sustainability, History, Future, Anthropocene, Hope, Grief,  Anti-Colonialism, Imagination