ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

The course is a first-year requirement for all students of the Master's Degree in Environmental Humanities.

The final goal is to enable students to address cultural issues related to the planetary environmental crisis from a theoretical and practical perspective in a largely autonomous manner.

Advanced reading, speaking and writing knowledge of English (B2)

This course introduces students to the environmental humanities, a cross-disciplinary field that explores the role that humanistic knowledge, in close conversation with the natural and social sciences, can play in interpreting and transforming a world challenged by an unprecedented planetary environmental crisis. We survey the history of the field, its main debates and key terminology (anthropocene, ecocriticism, nature/culture, posthuman, etc.). We explore the different political interpretations of ecology, forms of activism and public impact, examples of intellectual and artistic intervention. We will overview the main themes by concentrating on three authors representing very different and complementary perspectives on what the humanities can contribute to an understanding of the world. Many of our examples will also be drawn from the cultural history and present condition of Venice and its unique ecosystem, showing how this microcosm encapsulates most of the global issues at stake.
In summary, we will be addressing the role of the imagination in facing the planetary environmental crisis.

J. Andrew Hubbell and John C. Ryan, INTRODUCTION TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES, Routledge, 2021.
VENICE AND THE ANTHROPOCENE. AN EXPLORATION, Wetlands, 2022 (forthcoming)
Selected essays and multimedia material available on the Moodle platform.

Every student will have to produce a final individual research project (a written and illustrated essay or a multimedia text) dedicate to a specific site, examined from an Environmental Humanities perspective.

Lectures, class discussion, online activities.

English

In case the university is not fully accessible during the first semester, the class will take place in a blended or online format with no substantial changes to the programme.

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Natural capital and environmental quality" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development