Teaching the Climate Crisis
As wildfires, a global pandemic, rising sea levels, warming ocean waters and increasingly frequent and violent storms have recently shown us, climate change is a topic of imminent urgency. It is a convergence of plural crises that in the coming decades will require all hands on deck: It will require the cooperation of myriad fields of expertise rather than thinking in traditional disciplinary silos. While the sciences must provide the factual, data-based knowledge basis for any possible intervention, the humanities facilitate and enrich the discussion and interpretation of these data. While climate change is a hyperobject in the philosopher Timothy Morton’s sense – too large an entity for humans to envision – fiction and film enable us to go beyond the limits of our imagination, helping us to visualize and conceptualize the imminent threats to our planet’s ecology, including mass extinction.
This course establishes a postdisciplinary, integrative conversation linking the science of climate change, philosophy, anthropology, cultural studies, media studies, film studies, literary studies, English studies, pedagogy, and teacher education, ecocriticism and ecopedagogy.
Offered by FSU Jena, the course will introduce a number of guest presenters and will be taught fully online. Together with guest speakers with expertise in ecopedagogy and ecolological literacy, we will in particular explore pedagogical strategies for teaching the topics and materials discussed.
General Outcomes (knowledge, skills, attitudes, action):
Knowledge and Skills:
Students will be able to
** identify the local and global, material and social threats posed by climate change
** analyze the material, historical, political, philosophical, economic and cultural contexts and effects of climate change
** critically assess individual and communal environmental practices and values
** identify viable solutions to environmental problems and their unequal effects
** analyze how different types of (philosophical, literary, filmic, socio-political, etc.) texts engage environmental issues
** approach ecological issues from diverse socio-cultural and ontological perspectives and multiple scales of (human and geological/nonhuman) spacetime (change of perspective)
Attitudes:
Students will develop
** a sense of planetary responsibility for ensuring equitable access to environmental resources
** a sense of shared responsibility for dealing with environmental crises
** a nuanced, post-anthropocentric understanding of the ontological roles and relationships of humans and nonhuman beings and phenomena
Action:
Critical environmental literacy also includes the active participation in local and global communities. Students may be prompted to participate in (media) discourses about environmental issues, change their environmental behavior to adopt more sustainable lifestyles, or take individual or communal action towards ameliorating local/global environmental problems.
(Adapted from Claudia Deetjen & Christian Ludwig (2021), “Introduction: Developing Students' Critical Environmental Literacies in the ELT Classroom,” anglistik und englischunterricht, 94, 14-15)
Course requirements: regular attendance, two short group presentations (c. 20-30 minutes each) on (1) a short or small “artifact” of your choice (pop song, commercial, poem, video) and on a “longer text” (a Young Adult Novel, a documentary, a feature film).
Regarding the oral exam for the Staatsexamen, details will be announced in our first session. |
