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1
THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH
School of Geosciences
CULTURE, EDUCATION and the ENVIRONMENT
Course Handbook 2011
A quick overview 2
Introduction 3
Teaching Staff and Contact Details 4
Course Outline (with core readings and “homework”) 5-12
Course Assessment: Topics, Deadlines and Submission 13
2
Culture, Ethics and the Environment (Autumn 2011)
A Quick Overview
CLASS EVERY THURSDAY for 10 WEEKS, STARTING 22/09/11
FROM 14:00 to 18:00
IN ROOM 4, CREWE BUILDING ANNEX
22/09/11 Introduction – ecology and crisis John Harries
29/09/11 Land, water and air John Harries
06/10/11 Humans and other animals John Harries
13/10/11 “We Have Never Been Modern” John Harries
20/10/11 Climate, sustainability and vulnerability Justin Kenrick
27/10/11 Environmental education and schooling Hamish Ross
03/11/11 Sustainable dwelling Rachel Harkness
10/11/11 Policy and the politics of knowledge John Harries
17/11/11 Duties to creatures Michael Northcott
23/11/11 Valuing ecosystems and species Michael Northcott
02/12/12 Conclusion – hopeful ecologies John Harries
3
Introduction
Welcome to Culture, Ethics and the Environment! This is introductory, interdisciplinary
course explores the ways in which the complex, highly sociable and somewhat peculiar
animals we call humans engage with their environment. This exploration is animated by a
sense of crisis. From the 1960s onwards there has been a growing consensus (though there
are many dissenting voices) that the way in which we humans relate to the environment is
causing profound transformations in ecosystems, not just locally but globally. The nature of
these transformations are complex, but on the whole it is agreed they are worrisome. From
an anthropocentric perspective they are worrisome because humans are adapted to a
certain ecological situation and intense and rapid change in this situation may make our
lives more difficult or, in extreme situations, down-right impossible. From an ecocentric
perspective the violence we are doing to the complex and living fabric of water, air, earth,
plants and other animals is a moral wrong in and of itself, the nature of which is not
reducible to some calculus of human need and well-being.
It is the context of this pervasive (but often rather impotent) sense of crisis, that we will be
interrogating the cultural, ethical and philosophical assumptions that inform the ways in
which we humans engage with the environment (including those assumptions that inform
the environmentalist critique of modern life – from Thoreau to Carson to Abram – and our
emphasis on uninhibited “progress”). In so doing we will be questioning whether a critical
understanding of these assumptions may provide the basis for transforming the ways in
which we humans relate to the environment so we may find our way out of this time of
crisis and to a more harmonious and happier way of being in the world. This course is, in
other words, not just concerned with questions of culture and ethics in an abstract or
strictly “academic” sense. It is also concerned with practice and the ways in which we may
practically work to transform the deeply ingrained habits of thought and action that brought
us to where we are at the beginning of the 21st century. This transformation may be a
matter of making better policies, which are informed by a plurality of perspectives and
interests (including those of “non-human actors”). It may be a matter of educating our
children to a better and more sensitive awareness of the world around them. Or it may be a
matter of building, dwelling and living in a more sustainable way. All these possibilities will
be discussed.
4
Teaching and Administrative Staff (in order of appearance)
John Harries (course organiser)
Social Anthropology and School of Health in Social Science, The University of
Edinburgh
http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/staff/social_anthropology/harries_john
Email: [email protected], Tel: TBA
Justin Kenrick
Social Anthropology, The University of Edinburgh and PEDAL
http://pedal-porty.org.uk/what-is-pedal/the-pedal-board/
Email: [email protected]
Hamish Ross
Institute for Education, Teaching and Leadership, Moray House School of Education,
The University of Edinburgh
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/education/about-us/people/academic-
staff?person_id=302&cw_xml=profile.php
Email: [email protected]. Tel: 01316516410
Rachel Harkness
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, and the
Department of Marketing, University of Strathclyde
http://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/rachel.harkness.html
Email: [email protected], Tel: 01316511170
Michael Northcott
School of Divinity, The University of Edinburgh
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/divinity/staff-profiles/northcott
Email: [email protected], Tel: 01316507994
Christine Wilson (course secretary)
School of Geosciences, The University of Edinburgh
Email: [email protected] Tel: 01316504866
5
COURSE OUTLINE Please note! All the lectures will have assigned readings which will form the basis for our
discussions. Please ensure that you have this read (as carefully as time will allow) before the
lectures. Occasionally you may be ask to do a bit of “homework” in anticipation of next week’s
lecture. Again, please ensure this is done if at all possible.
Week 1 – 22/09/2011 – INTRODUCTION – ECOLOGY and CRISIS
John Harries
The first session will provide an overview of the course, including the programme of lectures, the
learning support available and the two pieces of assessed coursework. By way of an introduction to
the major themes and issues to be addressed throughout the programme of lectures, we will be
taking a broad overview of the recent history of environmental movements and ecological thought.
One feature of this history has been one of increasing consciousness of the scale and complexity of
the environment and, allied to this, a concern with the scale and complexity of the effects of human
endeavour on the environment. This has underpinned a growing sense of environmental crisis which
nowadays particularly focuses on climate change. Another feature of this history has been the
realisation that “our” way of knowing and being in the environment is just that: “our” way. There are
others. This realisation has given rise to a ongoing critique of “western” cultures of scientific
knowledge and ideologies of economic progress.
Readings:
Carson R. (1963) Silent spring, London: H. Hamilton. Chapter 1 “a fable for tomorrow” and Chapter 2
“the obligation to endure”, pages 3-12. (available on e-reserve)
Lovelock J. E. & Margulis, L. (1974) Atmospheric homeostatis by and for the biosphere: the gaia
hypothesis, Tellus XXVI 1-2, 1-9. (e-journal available)
Thoreau H. D. (1854) Walden; or, life in the woods. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. Chapter 1
“economy”, pages 3-15. (out of copyright and widely available to download, the pagination for this
reference comes from the version made available by the Pennsylvania State University at
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/thoreau/thoreau-walden6x9.pdf)
White L. Jr. (1967) The historical roots of our ecological crisis, Science 155 (3767), 1203-1207. (e-
journal available)
Week 2 – 29/09/2011 – LAND, WATER and AIR
John Harries
Following on from the realisation that there are a plurality of ways of knowing and being in the
environment this lecture introduces the notion that the “environment” is, in fact, a cultural
construction that assumes a peculiar point of view and a set of often taken-for-granted assumptions.
In contrast to a “naturalistic point of view” (which it is argued dominates much of our academic
writing concerning the environment), we will describe “relativistic” view, which assumes the
environment is not just a “given” but is constituted in our ongoing and engagement with the world;
an engagement which is informed by shared cultural dispositions. Working through a number of
ethnographic examples, including that of Uluru (Ayres Rock), we will elaborate a distinction between
a “western” way of “viewing” and relating to the environment (which may be revealed in the very
notion of the environment) and that of other peoples who, unlike we moderns, see the world not as
6
abstract vista whose inert potential is only activated by human endeavour, but as alive with intent
and spiritual being.
Exercise: Before the class in week two, please collect a “useful” plant which is growing locally. What
“useful” means is up to you. Bring this plant to class. If you do not wish to pick the plant then take a
photograph or two of it in situ. This must NOT be a cultivated plant, which has been intentionally
planted in someone’s garden or a park or an allotment etc. It must be a “wild” plant and/or a
“weed”, which has chosen its own place and is growing free (though what is “wild” and what is
“weed” can be a tricky question). When collecting remember to respect other people’s private
property. If you do collect from private property please only do so with the permission of the
property owner.
Readings
Abram, D. (1997) The spell of the sensuous, New York: Vintage Books. Chapter 1 “the ecology of
magic”, pages 3-29. (this books is available for not much money from Amazon, and I presume other
booksellers, there is no set text for this course but we will be returning to this book frequently and I
would recommend its purchase)
Figueroa R. M. & Watt G. (2010) Cracks in the mirror: (un)covering the moral terrains of
environmental justice at Uluru-Kate Tjuta National Park, Ethics, Place & Environment, 11:3, 327-349.
(e-journal available)
Milton, K. (1996) Ecologies: anthropology, culture and the environment, International Social Science
Journal 49 (154), 477-495. (e-journal available)
Myers, F. (1991) Pintupi country, Pintupi self: sentiment, place and politics among western desert
aborigines. Berkley, Calif.: University of California Press. Chapter 2 “the dreaming space and time”,
pages 47-70. (available on e-reserve)
Week 3 – 06/10/2011 – HUMANS and OTHER ANIMALS
John Harries
Just as our relationship with land, water and air varies historically and cross-culturally, so does our
relationship with non-human animals. In this lecture we will discuss the relationship between
humans-animals and non-human-animals. There is a rich and growing literature concerning human
animal relations, both amongst hunter-gatherers and “modern westerners” (whether they be
scientists, scallop fishermen, or pet owners, and we will be ranging broadly across this literature.
With particular reference to the seal hunt off the coast of Newfoundland, we will consider the ethics
of human exploitation of animals and the politics of animal welfare. We will expand this discussion
of hunting to explore issues of hunting and power, drawing a contrast between notion of power in
the “western” tradition, which has to do with imposing human will and dominion over “nature”, and
the notion of “power” amongst sub-arctic hunter-gatherers in Canada, which has to do with the
ability to maintain a harmonious relationship with the animals on which you depend. Elaborating
upon this contrast we conclude that animals, and the difference between humans and animals, may
be constituted in profoundly different terms and, by extension, people may relate to animals in
profoundly different ways. We may also throw in some stuff about meerkats.
7
Exercise: Before the class on week three please familiarise yourself with some of the arguments for
and against the hunting of harp seals off the coast of Newfoundland.
For
The Sealfishery.com: http://www.thesealfishery.com/index.php
The Canadian Sealers Association: http://www.sealharvest.ca/site/
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Government of Canada: http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-
gp/seal-phoque/index-eng.htm
Against
The Human Society of the United States: http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/seal_hunt/
Sea Shepherd: http://www.seashepherd.org/seals/seals.html
Harpseals.org (“working to end the harp seal slaughter”): http://www.harpseals.org/index.php
Decide whether you are for or against the killing of harp seals off the coast of Newfoundland (or
whether it is too complex and you wish to take a more equivocal position). Be prepared to discuss
you position in class.
Readings
Candea M. (2010) “I fell in love with Carlos the meerkat”: engagement and detachment in human-
animal relations, American Ethnologist 37 (2), 241-258. (e-journal available)
Feit H. A. (1986) Hunting and the quest for power: the James Bay Cree and Whitemen in the 20th
century, in B. R. Morrison & W. C. Roderick (eds) Native peoples: the Canadian experience,
Toronto,McClelland and Stewart), 171-207. (available on e-reserve)
Ingold T. (2000) The perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill, London:
Routledge. Chapter Four “from trust to dominion”, page 61-76. (available on e-reserve)
Thomas K. (1984) Man and the natural world: changing attitudes in England 1500-1800, London,
Penguin. Chapter One, “Human Ascendency” (available on e-reserve)
Week 4 – 13/10/2011 – “WE HAVE NEVER BEEN MODERN”
John Harries
The title of this lecture makes a reference to a work by Bruno Latour of the same name and this
lecture will start by briefly considering Latour’s theoretical project. This project represents an
influential critique of some of the assumptions that have underpinned the “cultural-relativist”
position that we have been taking in the previous two lectures. The main problem for Latour, as well
as Tim Ingold, Michael Holbaard and others to be introduced to our discussions, is that this position
assumes a distinction between objects and subjects, where animals, earth, water and air are objects
and humans are subjects. Our relativism is, therefore, an epistemological relativism that assumes
“object” world to be an essentially an inert physicality which we thinking subject constitute as
meaningful entities according to our cultural disposition. These critiques have argued for a
dissolution of the subject-object distinction, and that we must recognise that what we are dealing
with is not an “epistemological” relativism but an “ontological” relativism, which has to do with the
very nature of reality. This theoretical move beyond constructivism is of considerable importance to
the academic study of human-environmental relations (in part because in undoes that very term).
8
Particularly interesting has been a revival of interest in “animism” and “animistic ontologies”, which,
again, we will discuss in detail during the lecture.
Readings
Hornberg A. (2006) Animism, fetishism, and objectivism as strategies for knowing (or not knowing)
the world. Ethnos, 71, 21-32. (e-journal available)
Ingold T. (2006) Rethinking the animate, re-animating though, Ethnos 71 (1), 9-20. (e-journal
available)
Latour B. (1993) We have never been modern, Hemel-Hempstead Harvester Wheatsheaf. Chapter 4
“relativism”, pages 91-129. (available on e-reserve)
Week 5 – 20/10/2011 – CLIMATE CHANGE, SUSTAINABLITY and VULNERABILITY
Justin Kenrick
Climate Change is usually perceived either in terms of some future apocalypse or in terms of present
day impacts on people in the Global South. Solutions to the former are seen as relying on
international action by Governments; solutions to the latter are seen in terms of transferring wealth
to the Global South. In contrast, we will examine whether an underlying system of exponential
(boom and bust) economic growth is driving not only at our ecological but at our social limits. We
will examine whether – paradoxically - a focus on localities, and on two-way transfers between
localities in the Global South and North, can help us map a route through this global crisis.
Exercise: Please read one of the following debates and perspectives and come to class ready to
discuss the question Is fundamental change possible?
Debate one: Autonomous action vs Total system change (Hopkins, Holloway vs Chatterton,
Callinicos).
(i) Hopkins vs Chatterton:
Hopkins R. (2008) The rocky road to transition: a review. (Review available at Transition Culture
www.transitionculture.org)
Chatterton P. & Cutler A. (2008) The rocky road to a real transition: the transition towns movement
and what it means for social change, Trapeze Collective. (Available to view at:
http://sparror.cubecinema.com/stuffit/trapese/)
(ii) John Holloway vs Alex Callinicos 2005
Can we change the world without taking power?’ in International Socialism 5th April 2005. (Available
for viewing and download at: http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=98. Video is available at:
http://wn.com/john_holloway_and_alex_callinicos_debate_part_4.
Debate two: is it too late anyway (Kingsnorth vs Monbiot)?
(iii) Paul Kingsnorth vs George Monbiot Is there any point in fighting to stave off industrial
apocalypse? Guardian, 17th August 2009. (Available to view at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/aug/17/environment-climate-change)
Perspective thee: Is culture shift possible (Crompton)?
(iv) Crompton T. (2010) Common Cause: the case for working with our cultural values, WWF UK.
(Available to download at:
http://www.coinet.org.uk/sites/coinet.org.uk/files/common%20cause%20report%20final_0.pdf)
9
Readings
General
Reuter T. (2010) Anthropological theory and the alleviation of anthropogenic climate change:
understanding the cultural causes of system change resistance, World Anthropologies Network
Journal 5, 7-32. (e-journal available)
Commons Regimes
(Please read two of these reflections on commons regimes)
Nonini, D. (2006) The global Idea of the commons, Social Analysis 50 (3), 164-177. (e-journal
available)
Kenrick J. (2009) Commons thinking', in A. Stibbe (ed) The Handbook of Sustainable Literacy: Skills for
a Changing World. Darlington: Green Books. (Available to view and download at:
http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/5737/Commons-Thinking.pdf)
Blaser, M. (2004) Life projects: indigenous peoples' agency and development', in M. Blaser, H. Feit &
G. McRae (eds) In the Way of Development: Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects and Globalisation.
London: Zed Books. (Available to view and download at:
http://library.northsouth.edu/Upload/In%20the%20Way%20of%20Development.pdf#page=25)
Week 6 – 27/10/2011 – ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION and SCHOOLING: TRANFORMATION or REPRODUCTION?
Hamish Ross
The session will examine the relationship between environmental education and formal schooling as
an expression of culture. We will consider some contested purposes of schooling and some
standard analytical and critical approaches to school activity.
Readings
Stevenson R. B. (2007 [1986]) Schooling and environmental education: Contradictions in purpose
and practice. Environmental Education Research, 13(2), 139-153. (e-journal available)
Gagen E. A. (2007) 'Reflections on Primitivism: Development, Progress and Civilization in Imperial
America, 1898-1914, Children's Geographies, 5:1, 15-28. (e-journal available)
Week 7 – 3/11/2011 – SUSTAINABLE DWELLING: IN THEORY and PRACTICE
Rachel Harkness
How can we live in a more sustainable way, and what models are there for such living? Drawing
upon the specific example of an emergent culture of eco-dwelling called the Earthship, and thinking
about environmental architecture, building and design more generally, we will examine some of
the ways in which people both forge their environments and are in turn shaped by them. The ethical
issues, practicalities and possibilities presented by such co-construction of self and world should
then allow us to consider the range of critical and creative responses there are (and might be) to
the challenge of how to dwell sustainably. This will be a discursive and Largely informal class in
which we will hear about the practice of Earthship building and will use it and other examples of so-
called 'green living' to think about the relationship between theory and practice and the place of
imagination, hope and pragmatism in the forging of sustainable futures.
10
Exercise: Please bring an image that depicts sustainable dwelling or green living for you. Be
prepared to talk a little about your image and ideas (at least in a small group situation).
Readings
Classen C. (2009/2010) Harvard Design Magazine 31: (Sustainability) + Pleasure, Vol. II: Landscapes,
Urbanism, and Products. (hopefully will be available on e-reserve, otherwise will be made available
before the class)
Ingold T. (2000) The perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill, London:
Routledge. Chapter 10 “building, dwelling, living: how human and animals make themselves at home
in the world, pages 172-188. (hopefully will be available on e-reserve, otherwise will be made
available before the class)
Levi-Strauss C. (1966) The savage mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapter 1 “the science
of the concrete”. (hopefully will be available on e-reserve, but a pdf is available for download at
http://homepage.mac.com/allanmcnyc/textpdfs/levistrauss.pdf)
Also have a look at http://earthship.net before class.
Week 8 – 10/11/2011 – POLICY and the POLITICS of KNOWLEDGE
John Harries
This lecture will concern the governance of human-environmental relations and how this
governance may be informed by the recognition that there are a plurality of perspectives concerning
how best to “manage” our human being in the world. These perspectives are not merely distinct
according to the nature of their “interests”, as defined in narrowly economistic terms; rather, as
discussed in lecturers 2 and 3, they are shaped by more profound differences in the ways in which
people think, feel and engage with the world around them. Working through an extended example
of the management of North Atlantic cod stocks (trust me it is more interesting than it sounds), we
will critically examine of the changing role of natural science in the modern techniques of
governance and recent moves to democratize the governance process so as to allow for a plurality of
ways of knowing to inform the management of “natural resources”. In particular, we will be
discussing the concepts of Local Environmental Knowledge (LEK) and Community Based Natural
Resource Management, and the ways in which these concepts have influenced the politics and
processes of environmental governance. Keeping in mind the post-constructivist critique introduced
in lecture 4, we will also be questioning the limits of these approaches, both ethically and practically,
and considering how, if at all, trees, air, water and animals may be considered as anything other
than “resources” to be managed.
Readings
General
Escobar A. (1999) After nature: steps towards an anti-essentialist political ecology, Current
Anthropology 40 (1), 1-30. (e-journal available)
Hardin G. (1968) The tragedy of the commons., Science 162 (13), 1243-1248. (e-journal available)
About Cod (sorry ... there are even more believe me)
Cadigan S. (1999) The moral economy of the commons: ecology and equity in the Newfoundland
cod fishery, 1815-1855, Labour/Le Travail 43, 9-42. (e-journal available)
11
Steel D.H., Anderson R. & Green J.M. (1992) The managed commercial annihilation of northern cod,
Newfoundland Studies 8 (1), 34-67. (e-journal available)
Week 9 – 17/11/2011 – DUTIES to CREATURES
Michael Northcott
The utilitarian ethics of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, is the key foundation text of the animal
rights movement. Singer's approach is philosophically at odds with the deontological (duty-based)
approach of Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights. The utilitarians were the first to suggest that
the modern turn of moral philosophy towards the reasoning self as the arbiter and source of value
also had implications for nonhuman animals to the degree that they feel suffering or may be said to
have a sense of self. In this lecture it will be argued that the roots of respect for animals are deeper
than the utilitarian account allows and emanate from the post-Enlightenment nature-culture, as
reflected in the humanities-sciences divide. The repair of this divide requires a naturalisation of
philosophy and a more holistic science.
Readings:
Northcott M. (2009) “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain” (Isaiah 65. 25) – Killing
for philosophy and a creaturely theology of nonviolence, in C. D. Drummond & D. Clough (eds.)
Creaturely Theology: God, Humans and Other animals, London: SCM Press. (available on e-reserve)
Northcott M. (2008) Eucharistic eating, and why many early Christians preferred fish, in R. Muers &.
D. Grummet (eds.) Eating and Believing: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Vegetarianism and
Theology, London: T and T Clark. (available on e-reserve);
Northcott M. (2004) Farmed salmon and the sacramental feast: how Christian worship resists global
capitalism, in W. F. Storrar & A.Morton (eds.) Public Theology for the 21st Century, London:
Continuum. (available on e-reserve)
Northcott M. (2007) ‘Do dolphins carry the cross: biological moral realism and theological ethics,
New Blackfriars 84, 540-553. (e-journal available)
Week 10 – 23/11/2011 – VALUING ECOSYSTEMS and SPECIES
Michael Northcott
Ever since Plato philosophers have argued that aesthetic appreciation of beauty is a core element in
human experience of truth and goodness. Pre-moderns regarded natural beauty as a manifestation
of divinity and hence as intrinsically valuable (see Charles Taylor, The Secular Age, Harvard UP,
2007). With the demise of a transcendent cosmological frame for ethics the concept of aesthetics
has moved centre stage in some accounts of the human good, most notably that of David Hume and
more recently Theodore Adorno and Holmes Rolston. John Muir gives a classic account of the beauty
of nature and the spiritual experiences in humans which it may occasion see John Muir, My First
Summer in the Sierra (various editions). However Northcott argues that the split between nature and
culture, and science and society, is only underwritten by a conservation ethics focused on wilderness
and that a more fundamental change is needed in the social condition of modernity if the ecological
crisis is to be addressed. Instead he proposes that what is needed is a fundamental rethinking of the
mechanistic cosmology, and the mechanistic economics, that underlie the modern technoscientific
mind set, and the economistic mindset.
12
Readings
Northcott M. (2010) After the silent summer: Parochial ecology and the restoration of Nature,
conference paper, unpublished. (available from the lecturer)
Northcott M. (2005) Wilderness, religion and ecological restoration in the Scottish highlands,
Ecotheology 10 (3), 382-399. (e-journal available)
Northcott M. (2012) Embodying climate Change: renarrating energy through the senses and the
spirit, forthcoming in E. Brady & P. Pheminster (eds.) Embodied Values and the Environment London:
Springer (available on e-reserve)
Northcott M. (2011) Artificial persons against nature: environmental governmentality, economic
corporations and ecological ethics, forthcoming in Reviews in Conservation Biology and Ecology.
(available on e-reserve)
Week 11 – 02/12/2011 CONCLUSION – ECOLOGIES OF HOPE
John Harries
This concluding session will provide an opportunity to reflect on the course as a whole and to discuss
the key issues and questions that have been raised through the series of lectures and discussions.
These may include question such like: To what degree are our ways of being in the environment
culturally and historically embedded? On what basis can we constitute an environmental ethics? In
what ways may a critical and self-reflective appreciation of ourselves as cultural and ethical beings
inform the everyday practice of dwelling in the environment? How may we politically engage with
issues of human-environmental relations, particularly given the scale and complexity of these
relations? And, in this time of crisis, what hope is there for the future?
Abram, D. (1997) The spell of the sensuous, New York: Vintage Books. “Coda: turning inside out”,
pages 261-274.
Milton K. (2002) Loving Nature: towards an ecology of emotion. London: Routledge. Chapter 8
“protecting nature: science and the sacred”, pages 129-146. (available on e-reserve)
Soper, K. (2000) Future culture: realism, humanism and the politics of nature, Radical Philosophy
102, 17-26. (available to download at: http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/future-culture)
13
COURSE ASSESSMENT
There are two, fixed title, assignments and no examination. Feedback from assignments will
focus on the criteria in the School of GeoSciences Marking Guidance. Please read this before
writing assignments. Assignments should be submitted on‐line, through WebCT/TurnItIn.
This includes the use of automatic plagiarism software. Feedback for the first assignment
will be available on‐line at least one week prior to the submission date of the next
assignment. Feedback for the second assignment will be available by 13 January, 2012. You
are strongly advised to keep up with readings and to read well ahead (weeks ahead) to
allow for Subconscious digestion of the material and the maximum possible period in which
it can be integrated with your existing expertise.
Assignment 1
Due Date: Friday 4 November, 5pm
Submission: Anonymous, on‐line, via WebCT/TurnItIn (please use only matriculation number on your script. The filename for you assignment should be your matriculation
number only, including the leading ‘s’)
Word limit: 2,000
Weighting: 40%
Criteria: School of GeoSciences Marking Guidance
Title: Discuss the extent to which human-environmental relations are historically and culturally located
Readings: as per lectures 1, 2, 3 and 4, plus any readings from the list of additional readings as may
seem appropriate.
Assignment 2
Due Date: Tuesday 13 December, 5pm (on‐line submission via WebCT)
Submission: Anonymous, on‐line, via WebCT (please use only matriculation number on your
script. The filename for you assignment should be your matriculation number only, including the leading ‘s’)
Word limit: 3,000
Weighting: 60%
Criteria: School of GeoSciences Marking Guidance
Title: Critically discuss the ways and means by which we may constitute an applied environmental ethics that may practically address the crisis of climate change.
Readings: as per lectures 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, plus any reading from the list of additional
reading as may be appropriate.