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| Semester | fall semester 2024 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Marie Muschalek (marie.muschalek@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | As human beings are forced to grapple with the ecological and social challenges posed by the Anthropocene, they are led to reconsider their relationship to animals, plants, fungi, microbes, but also emerging new beings like clones, AIs, or cyborgs inhabiting the planet. This course delves into the rapidly growing field of Humanities scholarship that contests human exceptionalism, instead locating humans within the manifold, entangled, and changing life worlds of different organisms as well as within the material worlds of nature, environment, and technology. Reading extensively as well as intensively, we will analyze scholarly texts from different Humanities disciplines and ask how their attention to the nonhuman opens new questions in the study of history and culture. How does an interspecies history of colonialism in Myanmar change our understanding of colonial racism in the British Empire, for instance? Or can an anthropology of the Runa people in Ecuador’s Upper Amazon unsettle our basic assumptions about what it means to be human by attending to the stirrings of the forest and the perspective of dogs and jaguars? We will explore a variety of environmental, new materialist, more- or other-than-human, trans- and post-humanist writings and discuss how these can help us enrich and enliven our own studies. |
| Learning objectives | + explore the existing theoretical and empirical literature in the nonhuman Humanities + practice sorting complex materials—from many different disciplines and scholars engaged in thinking beyond the human—into schools of thought, theoretical camps, as well as ethical and political positions + critically evaluate such positions for use in our own research projects Assignments: - reading responses - review essay (2500 words) or preparation and moderation of a session |
| Bibliography | [Readings may include:] Viciane Despret, What Would Animals Say if We Asked the Right Questions? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto. Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” in: Simians, Cyborgs and Women. The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991, 149-181. ------, Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think. Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human. Berkley: University of California Press, 2013. Mohamad Amer Meziane, The States of the Earth. An Ecological and Racial History of Secularization. New York: Verso Books, 2024. Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 2011. Corey Ross, Liquid Empire. Water and Power in the Colonial World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024. Jonathan Saha, Colonising Animals. Interspecies Empire in Myanmar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World. On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. |
| Admission requirements | This course is for students in their second year or higher and intended to be challenging. English proficiency is expected. Studierende der Geschichte aller Studienstufen sowie Studierende anderer Studienfächer, in deren Module die Übung verknüpft ist. Bei Überbelegung werden Studierende der Geschichte bevorzugt zugelassen. |
| Course application | Students who miss the first session will not be admitted to the course. Max. enrollment: 18 |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Monday | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Monday 16.09.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 23.09.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 07.10.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 14.10.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 21.10.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 28.10.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 04.11.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 11.11.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 18.11.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 25.11.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 02.12.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 09.12.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Monday 16.12.2024 | 10.15-12.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
| Modules |
Modul: Archive / Medien / Theorien (Bachelor's degree subject: History) Modul: Areas: Europa Global (Master's degree program: European History in Global Perspective) Modul: Forschung und Praxis (Master's degree subject: East European History) Modul: Reflexion, Methodik, Praxis (Master's degree program: European History in Global Perspective) Modul: Theorie (Master's degree subject: History) Specialization Module Global Europe: Environment and Sustainability (Master's Studies: European Global Studies) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Departement Geschichte |