Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

The Anthropocene names a new epoch in which humans have a profound effect on the most important earth systems. Geologists still debate whether to recognise this period, but the term has taken off in the humanities and social sciences as a way of identifying and confronting the endemic unsustainability of contemporary societies and generating new perspectives on the challenges and experiences of living in a world that has been deeply, extensively and decisively marked by human activities.

This module explores the prospects of a sociology for the Anthropocene. It considers what knowledges, perspectives, conceptual resources and empirical explorations will be necessary to come to terms with this new epoch. It asks what sociology can bring to this enquiry. But it also explores how the discipline needs to change to address new existential dilemmas, political and ethical challenges, and practical and policy issues. In the Anthropocene humans are geological actors and the planet is thoroughly socialised. In such conditions, what is the social? How do we understand and change it?

Sociology has been comparatively slow to orient to the idea of the Anthropocene. Important and exciting approaches have come initially from the environmental humanities, cultural geographies, philosophy, literary studies, science and technology studies and beyond. The module therefore takes an interdisciplinary approach. But sociology also has a history of exploring social change, cultural attitudes, everyday experiences and social justice that may be invaluable to understanding the Anthropocene. Can sociology help us to think about what a 'good' Anthropocene might be and how and it might become possible?

Outline Of Syllabus

Content will change to reflect current debates and events. Indicative topics include:

HISTORIES AND CAUSES: defining and periodising the Anthropocene; locating causes and drivers; Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Extractive capitalism, colonialism, industrialism revolution, agricultural revolution, Great Acceleration.

THE 'ANTHROPO' IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: rethinking humans and other animals; hybrid ontologies; the posthuman.

A SOCIETY FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE: reassembling the social for new times; actor-network theories; theorising life in capitalist ruins; Black Anthropocenes and post-colonial thought.

NATURE AND THE ANTHROPOCENE: loss and conservation; reconceptualising ecology; new materialisms; environmental sociology after nature.

SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: the uneven impacts and causes of C21st environmental change; environmental and climate justice; slow violence.

ART AND CULTURE FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE: novels, films and other stories; dystopia, post-apocalypse – and utopia? The New Weird in art and speculative fiction.

ANTHROPOCENE FUTURES: narratives of loss and grief vs narratives of hope and vitality; is a good Anthropocene possible? Social movements against extinction; a better world under the shadow of no future.

INDICATIVE READING

Clive Hamilton (ed.) (2015) The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis: Rethinking Modernity in a New Epoch. London: Routledge.
Donna J Haraway (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NJ: Duke University Press.
Lesley Head (2015) Hope and Grief in the Anthropocene. London: Routledge.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

Students will be familiarised with the concept of the Anthropocene and contemporary debates about its value, significance, history, and relevance for contemporary society and sociology. Working with an up-to-date bibliography on key aspects of the topic, students will be able to understand how the idea of the Anthropocene both challenges and draws on theories and thinking in environmental sociology and beyond. Students will be able to contribute to Anthropocene debates in social theory, environmental humanities and beyond at a challenging conceptual level.

Intended Skill Outcomes

The module will develop skills of critical and interdisciplinary thinking as well as verbal and written communication through seminar discussions and diverse forms of writing and presentation. Students will be invited both to engage in analytical depth with a small selection of texts, and to synthesise material from different sources. They will have opportunities to devise coherent and well-supported arguments, communicate them clearly, and improve their work by responding to feedback from the module leader and the seminar group

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The module provides an innovative introduction to the idea of the Anthropocene. It supports students to explore its relevance for contemporary sociology. It focuses primarily on conceptual arguments and debates although in some years those will be balanced with empirical research. Teaching sessions are designed to support students to engage with demanding interdisciplinary literatures. Student-led class discussions of set reading will be followed by an interactive and flexible lecture developing the points raised in the reading discussion. Teaching will incorporate film screenings and other media as appropriate. Small teaching groups will enable inclusive discussion and include formative feedback. Students will have the opportunity to discuss assessment work at length in workshop and present emerging ideas for feedback from the module leader and the group prior to submission

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The assessment will support students to work across interdisciplinary and often demanding theoretical literatures. Rather than a standard essay, the two linked assessments separate key analytical and practical tasks. The essay/critical and contextual review invites students to undertake an in-depth engagement with a key text and place it in the context of relevant literatures. This assessment enables skills of identifying key texts, summarising arguments, and structuring and articulating a contextual and critical reading. Communication and high-level writing skills are also assessed: structure; clarity; referencing; abstraction; synthesis and analysis. In the creative project/presentation, students build on the critical and contextual review to develop a focused, coherent and persuasive argument in the form of a presentation consisting of text plus images and other relevant material, submitted in hard copy. This assessment tests skills of argumentation, capacity to selectively focus on a specific theme, and to identify and articulate an original position. It will also challenge students to show skills of creative and clear presentation as well as persuasion and concision.

General Notes

THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS PROVIDED AS THERE IS A CHARACTER LIMIT IN THE 'COMMENT' SECTION OF 'OTHER ASSESSMENTS'.

Twenty per cent of the marks available for Essay 3 will be awarded to students who revise their submission in response to feedback on a written presentation.