Topics in History (492-0-20)
Topic
Global Environmental History
Instructors
Lydia Barnett
847/491-7421
Harris Hall - Room 305
Meeting Info
Harris Hall room 101: Thurs 2:00PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
This seminar follows a global and multi-disciplinary approach to the vibrant diversity of recent scholarship in environmental history and the environmental humanities. Our theme this year is "Water, Waterways, and Fluid Ecologies." Water has been a central preoccupation of environmental history/humanities/studies since their formal constitution as academic fields, not to mention a core concern of human societies for as long as humans have been around and an increasingly critical one in the age of anthropogenic global warming. Rather than focusing on global processes and flows, however, we will delve deeply into place-based histories of water from around the world. Readings will span Latin America, Europe, Africa, North America, Asia, and Pacifica and may include: Bathsheba Demuth, Floating Coast (2019); Lucas Bessire, Running Out (2021); David Aiona Chang, The World and All the Things Upon It (2016); Claudia Leal, Landscapes of Freedom (2018); Keith Dawson, Undercurrents of Power (2018); Sugata Ray, Water Histories of South Asia (2020); Vera Candiani, Dreaming of Dry Land (2014); Chandra Mukerji, Impossible Engineering (2009); Ling Zhang, The River, the Plain, and the State (2016); Philipp Lehmann, Desert Edens (2022); Richard White, The Organic Machine (1995). This course is open to graduate students in all fields of history and from all disciplinary backgrounds, including the natural and social sciences, who have an interest in water and the environment.
Learning Objectives
To become familiar with the scope and methods of environmental history, as a disciplinary practice and in relation to interdisciplinary fields like the environmental humanities. To approach environmental issues through local and global frameworks. To become familiar with recent literature in water history and to explore the possibilities of integrating water into our teaching, research, and public-facing work.
Evaluation Method
Papers, Presentations, Class Participation
Class Attributes
Graduate Students Only