16923

WiSe 23/24: Speaking and writing about nature, climate, and the environment

Susanne Scharnowski

Kommentar

Topic: Many of the concerns and challenges of the 21st century are related to nature and the environment, such as climate change, pollution, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, and soil degradation. Accordingly, environmental topics feature prominently in the media. Texts, films, or podcasts about nature and the environment often expose the gap between what C.P. Snow described as the ‘two cultures’: science & technology on the one hand, arts & humanities on the other hand. In the political discourse of environmental and climate politics, however, we clearly see a dominance of a technocratic language. This language reflects an attitude according to which the natural world is little more than a resource that can and has to be managed through specialist knowledge. The language of technocracy, though, has consequences regarding the acceptance and democratic legitimacy of political decisions. What happens if we accept the premise that we should simply “follow the science”? Are there good reasons for emotional, aesthetic, or spiritual views of the natural world should play a more important role? Program: This course will serve as an introduction to the field of environmental communication: What does it entail, what should it achieve, who are the intended recipients, and what is the intended outcome? We will study various academic texts, addressing ‘the two cultures’, ‘framing’, and ‘technocratic discourse’. We will then analyze political speeches about environmental policy, some journalistic texts and an aesthetic manifesto. Finally, we will look at the genesis and development of nature writing and study extracts from classics such as Henry David Thoreau’s Walden or Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as well as more recent texts by British and American authors. We will analyze how these different texts operate, what they aim to accomplish and what we can take away from these texts. Students will have to purchase a reader with the texts on which the course is based at the copy centre Habelschwerdter Allee 37 (next to “Rostlaube”). Is this the right course for you? The course is open to students from all fields, from the sciences as well as from the humanities. However, you should be able to read English texts at a fairly high level, be prepared to study a wide variety of theoretical as well as literary and journalistic texts and be interested in environmental matters as well as in textual and discourse analysis. Workload and Assessment: To obtain 5 ECTS credits, you will have to study and engage with the course materials (an average of 15-20 pages of academic/ literary texts per week), pass a mid-term test before Christmas and submit a written assignment or sit a written exam at the end of the semester. If you want to participate, though, you must attend the first, at the latest the second session (20 or, at the latest, 27 October); joining the course later won’t be possible. In general, students must attend at least 85% of the classes (14 out of 16). Schließen