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: j.harries@ed.ac.uk, Tel: TBA

Justin Kenrick

Social Anthropology, The University of Edinburgh and PEDAL

http://pedal-porty.org.uk/what-is-pedal/the-pedal-board/

Email: justinkenrick@yahoo.com

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: Hamish.ross@ed.ac.uk. 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: r.j.harkness@ed.ac.uk, Tel: 01316511170

Michael Northcott

School of Divinity, The University of Edinburgh

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/divinity/staff-profiles/northcott

Email: m.northcott@ed.ac.uk, Tel: 01316507994

Christine Wilson (course secretary)

School of Geosciences, The University of Edinburgh

Email: Christine.wilson@ed.ac.uk 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.