Teaching Responsibility
LJMU Schools involved in Delivery:
Biological and Environmental Sciences
Learning Methods
Lecture
Off Site
Seminar
Workshop
Module Offerings
6404NATSCI-JAN-CTY
Aims
To develop a critical understanding of a diversity of ways human societies seek to understand and act on environmental futures. To develop conceptual, analytical and communicative skills to critically assess the function and implications of different forms of ‘futuring’ across policy, public, third sector and cultural spheres
Learning Outcomes
1.
Understand the significance and function of concepts such as apocalypse, catastrophe, collapse, crisis and survival across a range of political and socio-cultural contexts
2.
Critically evaluate policy and public responses to catastrophic and alternative environmental futures
3.
Demonstrate research skills of applying theoretical frameworks and analytical tools to investigate relevant case studies
4.
Utilise design tools to present complex ideas to a wider audience in a visually engaging way
Module Content
Outline Syllabus:
Introduction to the histories and geographies of the future, including academic research fields. Progressive and apocalyptic futures represented in wider culture. The significance of apocalyptic themes (extinction, collapse) in environmentalism. Affects and emotions of environmental futures, including grief and hope. How techniques of knowing (futurology) and governing (preparedness, resilience, emergency response) environmental futures are drawn on in different scientific, policy, and third-sector fields. Public and alternative responses to surviving and resisting catastrophic futures.
Introduction to the histories and geographies of the future, including academic research fields. Progressive and apocalyptic futures represented in wider culture. The significance of apocalyptic themes (extinction, collapse) in environmentalism. Affects and emotions of environmental futures, including grief and hope. How techniques of knowing (futurology) and governing (preparedness, resilience, emergency response) environmental futures are drawn on in different scientific, policy, and third-sector fields. Public and alternative responses to surviving and resisting catastrophic futures.
Module Overview:
Visions of catastrophic future events that undermine the very basis of survival saturate the public sphere and give rise to a contemporary atmosphere of fearful anticipation: from scientists’ dire warnings about climate futures, to environmental activism, to Hollywood blockbusters. Yet apocalyptic world endings have a history and a geography, are unevenly distributed, and intersect with other understandings of the future. In this module we will analyse multiple forms of knowing, governing, representing and resisting environmental futures. We will consider competing claims over the political and socio-cultural work that catastrophic narratives perform, and what our visions of the future reveal about present-day concerns.
Visions of catastrophic future events that undermine the very basis of survival saturate the public sphere and give rise to a contemporary atmosphere of fearful anticipation: from scientists’ dire warnings about climate futures, to environmental activism, to Hollywood blockbusters. Yet apocalyptic world endings have a history and a geography, are unevenly distributed, and intersect with other understandings of the future. In this module we will analyse multiple forms of knowing, governing, representing and resisting environmental futures. We will consider competing claims over the political and socio-cultural work that catastrophic narratives perform, and what our visions of the future reveal about present-day concerns.