Anthropocene

2024/2025

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

6

ECTS credits

Delivered at:

Department of History

Course type:

Elective course

When:

2 year, 1, 2 module

Instructors

Bekasova, Aleksandra

Рахманова Лидия Яковлевна

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The Anthropocene denotes a proposed geological epoch in which the impact of human activities on the Earth system as a whole has become distinctly visible. The idea of a human-led era has a longer history; however, it wasn’t until 2000 that the atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen promoted this name for a new geochronological period and introduced it into widespread interdisciplinary use. The Anthropocene concept has already unleashed a wealth of scientific literature, artistic engagement, and public debate all around the world. Within the concept of the Anthropocene, the history of mankind is organically integrated into the planetary history of the Earth, thus achieving a synthesis of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The principal aim of the course is to introduce the concept and contemporary debates of its application for historical research. The course aims to show how such fields as environmental and technological history as well as history of science are changing by introduction of this concept and how they contribute to the study of the relationship between humans and nature through transferring it into the environment by technologies including problems of climate change, extinction, and pollution. This class is reading and discussion-intensive.

Learning Objectives

• Introducing to students of history a novel concept of the Anthropocene and contemporary debates around its use in science, humanities and environmental politics; demonstration the potential of interdisciplinary studies for historians

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to analyze critically the literature they have read, use their knowledge in seminar discussions and in preparing final essay
• Students will master the framework of the contemporary scholarship on the Anthropocene and will improve their intellectual potential

Course Contents

• Introduction
• Climate
• Environment vs Nature. Rewilderning, taming and ruins of postsocialist era
• When the Anthropocene took off? ‘The Great Acceleration’ debate
• Energy challenge in historical perspective
• Infrastructures and Large Technological systems in history. Water and power
• Transforming raw materials into resources. Territories, flows and networks
• Ecological imperialism, green revolution
• Landscapes of Disaster: Toxicity, Pollution
• Invisible landscape agents and clandestine fisheries: far away from the State.
• Multispecies Ethnography and Critical Posthumanities
• Presentations. Discussion of reviews

Assessment Elements

• Leading of the seminar discussion
• Essay / article

Interim Assessment

• 2024/2025 2nd module
  Attendance and Participation (thoughtful contributions in the class) 25% Moderation of the seminar - 25 % Article to Arcadia / Essay - 30% Presentation of results at the concluding seminar - 20%

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Maria Damon, Christopher Schlottmann, Dale Jamieson, Colin Jerolmack, & Anne Rademacher. (2017). Environment and Society : A Reader. NYU Press.
• Warde, P., Sörlin, S., & Robin, L. (2013). The Future of Nature : Documents of Global Change. Yale University Press.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Dolly Jørgensen, Finn Arne Jørgensen, & Sara B. Pritchard. (2013). New Natures : Joining Environmental History with Science and Technology Studies. University of Pittsburgh Press.

Authors

• LAYUS YULIYA ALEKSANDROVNA
• RAKHMANOVA Lidiia Iakovlevna
• BEKASOVA ALEKSANDRA VIKTOROVNA