Themes in environmental humanities (DUH280)

Environmental humanities is a relatively new but rapidly expanding radically transdisciplinary endeavour that complements environmental science and public policy.

Environmental humanities focuses on the cultural, historical, artistic and ethical dimensions of environmental issues. Rather than being a discipline, environmental humanities has been characterized as a "global intellectual movement" and a "new interdisciplinary matrix". Although environmental humanities as a field grows out of individual humanities disciplines working on environmental issues, environmental humanities is not an umbrella term that simply collects existing disciplinary-based research; rather, environmental humanities combines humanistic perspectives and fields to create shared points of reference. Environmental humanities broadly investigates the human-environment relationship, producing critical work, reflecting on scientific developments, and engaging in new and creative ways with natureculture transformations.

This course will focus on a specific theme, selected each time the course is offered, to explore the transdisciplinary nature of the environmental humanities. This is not an introductory course, but one that delves deep into a particular theme, drawing on a multitude of perspectives and approaches to extract complex and nuanced understandings. The course will be taught over five intensive days, using a combination of external guest lecturers that are international experts in their fields, UiS faculty members, site visits, and student project work. The course emphasizes collaborative learning and project-based methodologies that connect theory, method, and practice. Students will have preparatory mandatory reading prior to the course meeting and project completion activities afterwards.

Knowledge

Students develop an understanding of:

• selected transdisciplinary research theories, methods, and approaches in environmental humanities.
• different communication channels for environmental humanities research

Skills

By the end of the course students will be able to:

• critically apply appropriate environmental humanities theories and methods to a case study
• create narratives to reach audiences outside of academia, including in digital delivery formats.
• read and reflect upon academic literature beyond their home disciplinary field

Competencies

By the end of the course students will be able to:

• engage with public environmental concerns
• demonstrate competency in communicating complex environmental humanities issues in understandable ways
• follow rigorous scholarly practice, including research ethics

Fagperson(er)

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