Unit information: Histories of Extreme Environments in 2020/21

Unit name	Histories of Extreme Environments
Unit code	HISTM0082
Credit points	20
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Adrian Howkins
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	none
Co-requisites	none
School/department	Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit is founded on the premise that deviations from the supposed norm implied by environmental extremes offer excellent opportunities for historical analysis. The central aim of the unit is to use histories of extreme environments to gain insights into broader social power structures, cultural beliefs, and underlying material conditions. Environmental extremes can take many forms. Prolonged periods of unusually hot or cold weather such as the medieval warm period or the little ice age constitute a form of environmental extreme, as do shorter periods of drought or crop failure. Natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding can suddenly turn safely familiar environments into something a lot more unpredictable and dangerous; so too can the presence of dangerous animals. Environments such as mountains, caves, deserts, oceans, the polar regions and outer space might be classified as ‘extreme’ by definition. Anthropogenic environmental change such as that caused nuclear accidents, military activity, or rapid deforestation can create environmental extremes out of previously ‘normal’ landscapes. The suggested geological epoch of the Anthropocene might imply that we are now living in a permanent environmental extreme that has deviated from a previously sustainable norm. Through critical analysis of a wide range of scholarship this unit aims to equip students with the ideas and tools needed to write an extended research essay on a topic of their choice related to extreme environments.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit students will be able to:

1. Identify and analyse recent historiographical developments and longer-term trends in Environmental History.
2. Analyse, synthesise and evaluate a range of primary sources using appropriate methodologies.
3. Design and frame a research question within relevant historiographies, theories and methodologies.
4. Compose an extended historical argument rooted in primary source analysis.

Teaching Information

Teaching will be delivered through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous sessions, including group seminar-style discussion and self-directed exercises.

Assessment Information

One 5000-word essay [ILOs 1-4]

Reading and References

Kate Brown, Manual for Survival: An Environmental History of the Chernobyl Disaster (2020)

Paul Warde, The Invention of Sustainability: Nature and Destiny c.1500-1870 (2018)

Nancy Langston, Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Legacy of DES (2010)

Adrian Howkins, The Polar Regions: An Environmental History (2016)

Marianna Dudley, An Environmental History of the UK Defence Estate (2012)

Bathsheba Demuth, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait (2019)