Key Issues in Environmental History (PEH310)

Content

 Environmental historians study how humans have worked with, shaped, and thought about nature and environment - and how we have been shaped by this nature. The course will examine major developments and boundaries of this field. What are the central problems environmental historians examine? How does environmental history knowledge matter in contemporary environmental debates? Through weekly theme-based seminar discussions, students will learn to conceptualize how environmental history scholarship applies to recent or ongoing environmental issues.

Learning outcome

A candidate who has completed and passed the course 

Knowledge

• has advanced knowledge about environmental history as a research field
• has critical understanding about how interactions between people and their environments have shaped historical developments

Skills

• can analyze environmental history publications for their structure, argumentation, empirical basis, and placement in the field
• can critically reflect over different approaches to environmental history as a research field
• can relate contemporary environmental issues to historical developments
• can find and use historical sources to construct histories that are legible to interested publics

General competence

• can account for and critically reflect over different approaches to environmental history, and discuss whether they contribute anything new to our understanding of the past and the present
• can actively participate orally in a seminar-based academic discussion
• can deliver an academic presentation orally to an audience

Required prerequisite knowledge

Exam

Coursework requirements

Course teacher(s)

Course teacher:

Course coordinator:

Method of work

This is a seminar-based course that requires active student participation. Students will work together and individually. The seminars will be complemented by some lectures.

Literature