The environmental crisis that dominates today’s agenda is often framed in technical terms, as if it were a form of collateral damage that can be repaired through minor adjustments, and as if the environment were merely an inert backdrop to human affairs. In reality, however, it is a crisis that calls into question different worldviews and the often conflicting, socially situated ways in which living beings perceive, transform, name, think about, and narrate their relationships with the rest of the planet, while being themselves transformed by those relationships.
In recent years, scholars from diverse geographical and academic backgrounds have been pushing beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries in an effort to decipher the complex entanglements between the human and the non-human, the living and the inanimate, that characterize life on—and of—planet Earth. This has given rise to a conceptual and methodological hybrid known as the Environmental Humanities.
The aim of this course is to provide students with a navigational map of this new field of study, in which the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences join forces to critically rethink environmental complexity across time. Organized around the key concepts of HUMAN, SCALE, and WATER, the course instructors will provide the tools needed to interpret and engage with this intellectual map.
In recent years, scholars from diverse geographical and academic backgrounds have been pushing beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries in an effort to decipher the complex entanglements between the human and the non-human, the living and the inanimate, that characterize life on—and of—planet Earth. This has given rise to a conceptual and methodological hybrid known as the Environmental Humanities.
The aim of this course is to provide students with a navigational map of this new field of study, in which the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences join forces to critically rethink environmental complexity across time. Organized around the key concepts of HUMAN, SCALE, and WATER, the course instructors will provide the tools needed to interpret and engage with this intellectual map.
Curriculum
teacher profile teaching materials
This course aims to enable you to:
- To gain an understanding of the multidisciplinary landscape of the Environmental Humanities
- To acquire knowledge and critical thinking skills regarding the concept of the Anthropocene
- To be able to recognise the new linguistic, conceptual and social practices that the global environmental crisis gives rise to
• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Steve Mentz, An Introduction to the Blue Humanities, Routledge, 2023, cap. 1 ("A Poetics of Planetary Water").
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 book of your choice out of:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
Fruizione: 20711517 INTRODUZIONE ALLE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES in Scienze umane per l'ambiente LM-1 R GALLINI STEFANIA, MUSSGNUG Florian, AUBRY MARINE JULIETTE
Programme
The environmental crisis currently dominating the agenda is often framed in technical terms, as if it were collateral damage that could be repaired with a few tweaks, and the environment were merely an inert backdrop to human affairs. It is, however, a crisis that calls into question worldviews and the ever-conflicting and socially conditioned ways in which living beings observe, transform, name, think about, and narrate their relationships with the rest of the planet, whilst being transformed by it themselves. For some years now, scholars from diverse geographical regions and fields of knowledge, by pushing the boundaries of their respective disciplines, have been attempting to unravel the complex nature of the intertwined relationships between the human and the non-human, between the living and the inanimate, which characterise life on and of planet Earth. This has given rise to a conceptual and methodological hybrid: the Environmental Humanities. The aim of the course is to provide a roadmap for navigating this new field of study, in which the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences come together to critically rethink environmental complexity over time. Organised around the keywords HUMAN, SCALE and WATER, the course lecturers will provide the tools to interpret that roadmap.This course aims to enable you to:
- To gain an understanding of the multidisciplinary landscape of the Environmental Humanities
- To acquire knowledge and critical thinking skills regarding the concept of the Anthropocene
- To be able to recognise the new linguistic, conceptual and social practices that the global environmental crisis gives rise to
Core Documentation
1) 4 journal articles/book chapters:• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Steve Mentz, An Introduction to the Blue Humanities, Routledge, 2023, cap. 1 ("A Poetics of Planetary Water").
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 book of your choice out of:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
Type of delivery of the course
The course is seminar-based and encourages active participation: attendance is strongly recommended. The three lecturers will take turns teaching and will, in some cases, teach jointly, exploring the three main themes proposed by the Environmental Humanities: o HUMAN: The Anthropocene, species being, homo vs Anthropos, (post)humanism: the conceptual and terminological challenges of the Environmental Humanities (Prof. Gallini and Prof. Mussgnug) o SCALE: Time and space: the variable chronological and geographical scales of environmental complexity (Prof. Gallini and Mussgnug) o WATER: Blue Humanities and Anthropocene literature (Prof. Aubry-Morici)Attendance
attendance is highly recommendedType of evaluation
Attending students: Continuous assessment for each section, which will contribute to the final mark. Results will be recorded at the first available examination session following the end of the course. Non-attending students and attending students who prefer not to undertake continuous assessment: An oral examination based on the texts in the Bibliography (1 book and 4 articles/chapters) teacher profile teaching materials
• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Oppermann, Serpil, Blue Humanities: Storied Waterscapes in the Anthropocene. Cambridge University Press; 2023, pp. 1-15
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 libro a scelta:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
Fruizione: 20711517 INTRODUZIONE ALLE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES in Scienze umane per l'ambiente LM-1 R GALLINI STEFANIA, MUSSGNUG Florian, AUBRY MARINE JULIETTE
Core Documentation
1) 4 articoli/capitoli di libro:• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Oppermann, Serpil, Blue Humanities: Storied Waterscapes in the Anthropocene. Cambridge University Press; 2023, pp. 1-15
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 libro a scelta:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
teacher profile teaching materials
‘’Blue Humanities and Anthropocene Literature’’
The Anthropocene puts to the test the very forms of literature and the boundaries between the genres of literary narrative and those of scientific inquiry. In particular, we will focus on the literary dimension of the Blue Humanities, which — within the Environmental Humanities — read the ocean as an active part of human history: the limit of a coastal species, a space to be dominated, an archive of colonial trauma. We will also seek to measure their contribution to an Anthropocene literature in which the ocean unsettles the foundational elements of subjective experience: the ground as foundation, the observer at a distance, the subject at the centre of the narrative. How does writing about the sea and the ocean carve out a space between literary and non-literary genres, between essay and narrative, in order to call into question the subject at the centre of the story and the ground that founds it? And to what extent can it truly unanchor thought from the Earth, which for phenomenology remains its ark?
WATER (What the Blue Humanities Are) · SCALE (The Oceanic Scale) · KNOWLEDGES (The Sea as Knowledge) · HUMAN (Oceanising the Human)
Fruizione: 20711517 INTRODUZIONE ALLE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES in Scienze umane per l'ambiente LM-1 R GALLINI STEFANIA, MUSSGNUG Florian, AUBRY MARINE JULIETTE
Programme
Literary Criticism and Comparative Literature Unit:‘’Blue Humanities and Anthropocene Literature’’
The Anthropocene puts to the test the very forms of literature and the boundaries between the genres of literary narrative and those of scientific inquiry. In particular, we will focus on the literary dimension of the Blue Humanities, which — within the Environmental Humanities — read the ocean as an active part of human history: the limit of a coastal species, a space to be dominated, an archive of colonial trauma. We will also seek to measure their contribution to an Anthropocene literature in which the ocean unsettles the foundational elements of subjective experience: the ground as foundation, the observer at a distance, the subject at the centre of the narrative. How does writing about the sea and the ocean carve out a space between literary and non-literary genres, between essay and narrative, in order to call into question the subject at the centre of the story and the ground that founds it? And to what extent can it truly unanchor thought from the Earth, which for phenomenology remains its ark?
WATER (What the Blue Humanities Are) · SCALE (The Oceanic Scale) · KNOWLEDGES (The Sea as Knowledge) · HUMAN (Oceanising the Human)
Type of evaluation
The course has a seminar format and encourages active participation: attendance is highly recommended. For attending students: In-progress assessments for each section, which will contribute to forming the final grade. The grade will be recorded at the first available examination session after the end of the course. For non-attending students: Oral examination based on the study of texts listed in the Bibliography Section teacher profile teaching materials
This course aims to enable you to:
- To gain an understanding of the multidisciplinary landscape of the Environmental Humanities
- To acquire knowledge and critical thinking skills regarding the concept of the Anthropocene
- To be able to recognise the new linguistic, conceptual and social practices that the global environmental crisis gives rise to
• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Steve Mentz, An Introduction to the Blue Humanities, Routledge, 2023, cap. 1 ("A Poetics of Planetary Water").
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 book of your choice out of:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
Fruizione: 20711517 INTRODUZIONE ALLE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES in Scienze umane per l'ambiente LM-1 R GALLINI STEFANIA, MUSSGNUG Florian, AUBRY MARINE JULIETTE
Programme
The environmental crisis currently dominating the agenda is often framed in technical terms, as if it were collateral damage that could be repaired with a few tweaks, and the environment were merely an inert backdrop to human affairs. It is, however, a crisis that calls into question worldviews and the ever-conflicting and socially conditioned ways in which living beings observe, transform, name, think about, and narrate their relationships with the rest of the planet, whilst being transformed by it themselves. For some years now, scholars from diverse geographical regions and fields of knowledge, by pushing the boundaries of their respective disciplines, have been attempting to unravel the complex nature of the intertwined relationships between the human and the non-human, between the living and the inanimate, which characterise life on and of planet Earth. This has given rise to a conceptual and methodological hybrid: the Environmental Humanities. The aim of the course is to provide a roadmap for navigating this new field of study, in which the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences come together to critically rethink environmental complexity over time. Organised around the keywords HUMAN, SCALE and WATER, the course lecturers will provide the tools to interpret that roadmap.This course aims to enable you to:
- To gain an understanding of the multidisciplinary landscape of the Environmental Humanities
- To acquire knowledge and critical thinking skills regarding the concept of the Anthropocene
- To be able to recognise the new linguistic, conceptual and social practices that the global environmental crisis gives rise to
Core Documentation
1) 4 journal articles/book chapters:• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Steve Mentz, An Introduction to the Blue Humanities, Routledge, 2023, cap. 1 ("A Poetics of Planetary Water").
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 book of your choice out of:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
Type of delivery of the course
The course is seminar-based and encourages active participation: attendance is strongly recommended. The three lecturers will take turns teaching and will, in some cases, teach jointly, exploring the three main themes proposed by the Environmental Humanities: o HUMAN: The Anthropocene, species being, homo vs Anthropos, (post)humanism: the conceptual and terminological challenges of the Environmental Humanities (Prof. Gallini and Prof. Mussgnug) o SCALE: Time and space: the variable chronological and geographical scales of environmental complexity (Prof. Gallini and Mussgnug) o WATER: Blue Humanities and Anthropocene literature (Prof. Aubry-Morici)Attendance
attendance is highly recommendedType of evaluation
Attending students: Continuous assessment for each section, which will contribute to the final mark. Results will be recorded at the first available examination session following the end of the course. Non-attending students and attending students who prefer not to undertake continuous assessment: An oral examination based on the texts in the Bibliography (1 book and 4 articles/chapters) teacher profile teaching materials
• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Oppermann, Serpil, Blue Humanities: Storied Waterscapes in the Anthropocene. Cambridge University Press; 2023, pp. 1-15
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 libro a scelta:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
Fruizione: 20711517 INTRODUZIONE ALLE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES in Scienze umane per l'ambiente LM-1 R GALLINI STEFANIA, MUSSGNUG Florian, AUBRY MARINE JULIETTE
Core Documentation
1) 4 articoli/capitoli di libro:• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Oppermann, Serpil, Blue Humanities: Storied Waterscapes in the Anthropocene. Cambridge University Press; 2023, pp. 1-15
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 libro a scelta:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
teacher profile teaching materials
‘’Blue Humanities and Anthropocene Literature’’
The Anthropocene puts to the test the very forms of literature and the boundaries between the genres of literary narrative and those of scientific inquiry. In particular, we will focus on the literary dimension of the Blue Humanities, which — within the Environmental Humanities — read the ocean as an active part of human history: the limit of a coastal species, a space to be dominated, an archive of colonial trauma. We will also seek to measure their contribution to an Anthropocene literature in which the ocean unsettles the foundational elements of subjective experience: the ground as foundation, the observer at a distance, the subject at the centre of the narrative. How does writing about the sea and the ocean carve out a space between literary and non-literary genres, between essay and narrative, in order to call into question the subject at the centre of the story and the ground that founds it? And to what extent can it truly unanchor thought from the Earth, which for phenomenology remains its ark?
WATER (What the Blue Humanities Are) · SCALE (The Oceanic Scale) · KNOWLEDGES (The Sea as Knowledge) · HUMAN (Oceanising the Human)
Fruizione: 20711517 INTRODUZIONE ALLE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES in Scienze umane per l'ambiente LM-1 R GALLINI STEFANIA, MUSSGNUG Florian, AUBRY MARINE JULIETTE
Programme
Literary Criticism and Comparative Literature Unit:‘’Blue Humanities and Anthropocene Literature’’
The Anthropocene puts to the test the very forms of literature and the boundaries between the genres of literary narrative and those of scientific inquiry. In particular, we will focus on the literary dimension of the Blue Humanities, which — within the Environmental Humanities — read the ocean as an active part of human history: the limit of a coastal species, a space to be dominated, an archive of colonial trauma. We will also seek to measure their contribution to an Anthropocene literature in which the ocean unsettles the foundational elements of subjective experience: the ground as foundation, the observer at a distance, the subject at the centre of the narrative. How does writing about the sea and the ocean carve out a space between literary and non-literary genres, between essay and narrative, in order to call into question the subject at the centre of the story and the ground that founds it? And to what extent can it truly unanchor thought from the Earth, which for phenomenology remains its ark?
WATER (What the Blue Humanities Are) · SCALE (The Oceanic Scale) · KNOWLEDGES (The Sea as Knowledge) · HUMAN (Oceanising the Human)
Type of evaluation
The course has a seminar format and encourages active participation: attendance is highly recommended. For attending students: In-progress assessments for each section, which will contribute to forming the final grade. The grade will be recorded at the first available examination session after the end of the course. For non-attending students: Oral examination based on the study of texts listed in the Bibliography Section teacher profile teaching materials
This course aims to enable you to:
- To gain an understanding of the multidisciplinary landscape of the Environmental Humanities
- To acquire knowledge and critical thinking skills regarding the concept of the Anthropocene
- To be able to recognise the new linguistic, conceptual and social practices that the global environmental crisis gives rise to
• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Steve Mentz, An Introduction to the Blue Humanities, Routledge, 2023, cap. 1 ("A Poetics of Planetary Water").
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 book of your choice out of:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
Fruizione: 20711517 INTRODUZIONE ALLE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES in Scienze umane per l'ambiente LM-1 R GALLINI STEFANIA, MUSSGNUG Florian, AUBRY MARINE JULIETTE
Programme
The environmental crisis currently dominating the agenda is often framed in technical terms, as if it were collateral damage that could be repaired with a few tweaks, and the environment were merely an inert backdrop to human affairs. It is, however, a crisis that calls into question worldviews and the ever-conflicting and socially conditioned ways in which living beings observe, transform, name, think about, and narrate their relationships with the rest of the planet, whilst being transformed by it themselves. For some years now, scholars from diverse geographical regions and fields of knowledge, by pushing the boundaries of their respective disciplines, have been attempting to unravel the complex nature of the intertwined relationships between the human and the non-human, between the living and the inanimate, which characterise life on and of planet Earth. This has given rise to a conceptual and methodological hybrid: the Environmental Humanities. The aim of the course is to provide a roadmap for navigating this new field of study, in which the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences come together to critically rethink environmental complexity over time. Organised around the keywords HUMAN, SCALE and WATER, the course lecturers will provide the tools to interpret that roadmap.This course aims to enable you to:
- To gain an understanding of the multidisciplinary landscape of the Environmental Humanities
- To acquire knowledge and critical thinking skills regarding the concept of the Anthropocene
- To be able to recognise the new linguistic, conceptual and social practices that the global environmental crisis gives rise to
Core Documentation
1) 4 journal articles/book chapters:• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Steve Mentz, An Introduction to the Blue Humanities, Routledge, 2023, cap. 1 ("A Poetics of Planetary Water").
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 book of your choice out of:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
Type of delivery of the course
The course is seminar-based and encourages active participation: attendance is strongly recommended. The three lecturers will take turns teaching and will, in some cases, teach jointly, exploring the three main themes proposed by the Environmental Humanities: o HUMAN: The Anthropocene, species being, homo vs Anthropos, (post)humanism: the conceptual and terminological challenges of the Environmental Humanities (Prof. Gallini and Prof. Mussgnug) o SCALE: Time and space: the variable chronological and geographical scales of environmental complexity (Prof. Gallini and Mussgnug) o WATER: Blue Humanities and Anthropocene literature (Prof. Aubry-Morici)Attendance
attendance is highly recommendedType of evaluation
Attending students: Continuous assessment for each section, which will contribute to the final mark. Results will be recorded at the first available examination session following the end of the course. Non-attending students and attending students who prefer not to undertake continuous assessment: An oral examination based on the texts in the Bibliography (1 book and 4 articles/chapters) teacher profile teaching materials
• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Oppermann, Serpil, Blue Humanities: Storied Waterscapes in the Anthropocene. Cambridge University Press; 2023, pp. 1-15
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 libro a scelta:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
Fruizione: 20711517 INTRODUZIONE ALLE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES in Scienze umane per l'ambiente LM-1 R GALLINI STEFANIA, MUSSGNUG Florian, AUBRY MARINE JULIETTE
Core Documentation
1) 4 articoli/capitoli di libro:• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “The Climate of History: Four Theses”, Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009): 197–222. (ESISTE TRAD. IT.)
• Oppermann, Serpil, Blue Humanities: Storied Waterscapes in the Anthropocene. Cambridge University Press; 2023, pp. 1-15
• Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press, 2013. PART. 2: SUSTAINABILITY, PP.63-116
• Iovino, Serenella, e Marco Armiero. “Environmental Humanities.” In Enciclopedia Treccani: Decima Appendice. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/45034530/Environmental_Humanities_Enciclopedia_Treccani_.
2) 1 libro a scelta:
• Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. (La grande Cecità: Il cambiamento climatico e l’impensabile, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2017)
• Ghosh, Amitav. La maledizione della noce moscata. Parabole per un pianeta in crisi, trad. di Norman Gobetti e Anna Nadotti, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2022
teacher profile teaching materials
‘’Blue Humanities and Anthropocene Literature’’
The Anthropocene puts to the test the very forms of literature and the boundaries between the genres of literary narrative and those of scientific inquiry. In particular, we will focus on the literary dimension of the Blue Humanities, which — within the Environmental Humanities — read the ocean as an active part of human history: the limit of a coastal species, a space to be dominated, an archive of colonial trauma. We will also seek to measure their contribution to an Anthropocene literature in which the ocean unsettles the foundational elements of subjective experience: the ground as foundation, the observer at a distance, the subject at the centre of the narrative. How does writing about the sea and the ocean carve out a space between literary and non-literary genres, between essay and narrative, in order to call into question the subject at the centre of the story and the ground that founds it? And to what extent can it truly unanchor thought from the Earth, which for phenomenology remains its ark?
WATER (What the Blue Humanities Are) · SCALE (The Oceanic Scale) · KNOWLEDGES (The Sea as Knowledge) · HUMAN (Oceanising the Human)
Fruizione: 20711517 INTRODUZIONE ALLE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES in Scienze umane per l'ambiente LM-1 R GALLINI STEFANIA, MUSSGNUG Florian, AUBRY MARINE JULIETTE
Programme
Literary Criticism and Comparative Literature Unit:‘’Blue Humanities and Anthropocene Literature’’
The Anthropocene puts to the test the very forms of literature and the boundaries between the genres of literary narrative and those of scientific inquiry. In particular, we will focus on the literary dimension of the Blue Humanities, which — within the Environmental Humanities — read the ocean as an active part of human history: the limit of a coastal species, a space to be dominated, an archive of colonial trauma. We will also seek to measure their contribution to an Anthropocene literature in which the ocean unsettles the foundational elements of subjective experience: the ground as foundation, the observer at a distance, the subject at the centre of the narrative. How does writing about the sea and the ocean carve out a space between literary and non-literary genres, between essay and narrative, in order to call into question the subject at the centre of the story and the ground that founds it? And to what extent can it truly unanchor thought from the Earth, which for phenomenology remains its ark?
WATER (What the Blue Humanities Are) · SCALE (The Oceanic Scale) · KNOWLEDGES (The Sea as Knowledge) · HUMAN (Oceanising the Human)
Type of evaluation
The course has a seminar format and encourages active participation: attendance is highly recommended. For attending students: In-progress assessments for each section, which will contribute to forming the final grade. The grade will be recorded at the first available examination session after the end of the course. For non-attending students: Oral examination based on the study of texts listed in the Bibliography Section