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56912-01 - Seminar: The Anthropocene — Perspectives from the Environmental Humanities (3 KP)
| Semester | Frühjahrsemester 2020 |
| Angebotsmuster | einmalig |
| Dozierende | Philippe Forêt (philippe.foret@unibas.ch, BeurteilerIn) |
| Inhalt | The Anthropocene defines a contested geologic time period (ca. 1600-today) during which human activities have altered the natural cycles of geologic, atmospheric, maritime, biospheric, and other earth systems. An introduction to Anthropocene studies and a better understanding of the contributions of the environmental humanities to the research conducted on the Anthropocene are our two main objectives. Our class will: 1. Survey the environmental transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene. 2. Study dramatic physical, political and cultural transformations in our environment from pre-modern to postmodern cultures. 3. Review the entanglement of research reports, public discourses, scientific concepts, conferences, exhibitions, techniques and perspectives that have depicted the Anthropocene. The emergence of the Swiss school of the environmental humanities and the work now done on the Anthropocene in Switzerland will also be discussed in detail. |
| Lernziele | Your active participation is required since this is a research-intensive class with a strong writing component: 1. You will be introduced to the methods specific to the environmental humanities, and you will participate in the current debate on the Anthropocene. 2. You will learn how the environmental humanities have questioned and contextualized primary sources of information on the Anthropocene. 3. You will also learn how to locate and exploit relevant information on topics such as the city, colonialism, development, discourse, gender, governance, ideology, landscape, methodology, migration, modernity, nature, public policy, representation, science, and violence. |
| Literatur | Maps, comics, museum catalogues, art fairs, the social media, video clips, etc. will provide you with information on the approaches developed by the environmental humanities to the transformation, accidents, crises, collapse, extinction, recovery, resilience, unsustainability, and innovation that together have characterized the Anthropocene. For more information on the background of our seminar: 1. Gregg Mitman, Marco Armiero, and Robert S. Emmett. Future Remains. A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene. The University of Chicago Press, 2017: https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo27213130.html 2. Naomi Oreskes. Why Trust Science? Princeton University Press, 2019: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179001/why-trust-science 3. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, and the Deutsches Museum, Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands, 2014-16: http://www.environmentandsociety.org/exhibitions/welcome-anthropocene 4. P. Warde, R. Libby, and S. Sörlin, The Environment: A History of the Idea. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018: https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/environment 5. Sam White, Christian Pfister, and Franz Mauelshagen (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 : https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137430199 |
| Bemerkungen | To encourage your interactions with the instructor and facilitate personal supervision, the number of participants in this seminar would be below 20. The selection criteria are the following: 1. Your ability to carry a heavy research, reading, and writing load. 2. Your ability to work in small teams that value autonomy, diversity, and inclusion. 3. A very good command of English in addition to a second international language. 4. Your interdisciplinary training, bridging the humanities and the natural sciences. |
| Unterrichtssprache | Englisch |
| Einsatz digitaler Medien | kein spezifischer Einsatz |
| Intervall | Wochentag | Zeit | Raum |
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Keine Einzeltermine verfügbar, bitte informieren Sie sich direkt bei den Dozierenden.
| Module |
Modul: Fachkompetenz Globaler Wandel (Master Studienfach: Geographie) Modul: Politik, Entwicklung und soziale Ungleichheit (Bachelor Studienfach: Soziologie) Modul: Projects and Processes of Urbanization (Master Studiengang: Critical Urbanisms) Modul: Ungleichheit, Konflikt, Kultur (Master Studienfach: Soziologie) Vertiefungsmodul Global Europe: Umwelt und Nachhaltigkeit (Masterstudium: European Global Studies) |
| Prüfung | Lehrveranst.-begleitend |
| Hinweise zur Prüfung | You will write a book review and give an oral report on your findings on a topic of your choice. 1. Written assignment: Book review (in English). You will choose and evaluate one of the volumes published in the RCC Perspectives series (Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig-Maximilians University). 2. Oral assignment: Presentation in class on a research topic you select. |
| An-/Abmeldung zur Prüfung | Anmelden: Belegen; Abmelden: nicht erforderlich |
| Wiederholungsprüfung | keine Wiederholungsprüfung |
| Skala | Pass / Fail |
| Belegen bei Nichtbestehen | nicht wiederholbar |
| Zuständige Fakultät | Philosophisch-Historische Fakultät, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Anbietende Organisationseinheit | Fachbereich Soziologie |