IM934 Ecological Futures: Science, Culture and Media
IM934
Ecological Futures: Science, Culture and Media
Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Modules
IM902 Approaches to the Digital
IM904 Digital Objects, Digital Methods
IM913 Spatial Methods and Practice in Urban Science
IM919 Urban Data - Theory and Methodology
IM923 User Interface Cultures: Design, Method and Critique
IM931 Interdisciplinary Approaches to Machine Learning
IM934 Ecological Futures: Science, Culture and Media
IM938 Transparency, Security & Trust - Something to Hide?
IM939 Data Science Across Disciplines: Principles, Practice and Critique
QS903 Advanced Quantitative Research
15/20/30 CATS (7.5/10/15 ECTS)
Term 1
The future will be ecological or will not be. To be ecological is to nurture our inevitable interdependencies with others and the non-human world. As the environmental crisis deepens, disciplines and practices respond by integrating ecological concepts, frameworks and methods into their ways of thinking and intervening in the world.
This module aims to develop postgraduate students’ theoretical, methodological and creative skills to respond to the pressing environmental challenges faced by contemporary technoscientific societies. It will help students develop an understanding of what ecology comes to mean in a range of fields: scientific, sociological, cultural, media and data studies and cultural fields including visual and artistic practices.
The module will provide a transdisciplinary conceptual framework, required to reflect critically on the diverse meanings taken by “ecology” in the earth and environmental sciences, the social sciences and humanities. It will introduce concepts and methods derived from: ecology science, science and technology studies, cultural and human geographies, animal studies, media studies, feminist studies, critical theory, political ecology, art and design.
MODULE CONVENOR - Professor Maria Puig de la Bellacasa
OUTLINE SYLLABUS
Projected lecture themes include:
- Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Ecocene
- Concepts of ecology: thinking relationally
- Nature as service provider: the promise of ecological economics
- Ecology as everyday life: sociologies of sustainable living
- Infrastructures and mediations: (Un)sustainable Media
- Mimicking nature: the eco-centric turn in design
- Ecological aesthetics: the case of land and soil arts and performance
- Fictional natures: the literature of ecological futures
Projected seminar topics include
- Campus nature observation exercise
- Extinctions: anthropocentrism and interdependency
- Atmospheric pollution: citizens and care
- Carry our own waste: ecological cycles and circular economies
- Food: environmental more than human justice from soil to fork
- Extractivism and indigenous struggles
ILLUSTRATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY
Students will be encouraged and assisted in researching and developing their own reading list according to their interests and to support their essay. Assigned readings in preparation for lectures and seminars will mostly consist of journal articles as well as chapters selected from the following:
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LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
- Understand a diversity of theories and practices of ecological thinking
- Critically appraise ecological responses to environmental issues
- Apply theories of ecology to concrete social, disciplinary, and professional contexts
- Identify innovation in ecological approaches and their significance for understanding emerging environmental challenges
ASSESSMENT
- Formative assessed short case study (700-800 words) and presentation midway through the term. This is assessed only insofar as it is compulsory for module completion. It will not contribute to the final grade.
- The final assessment is an essay. Students will be given the choice of a range of approaches presented in the module to analyse a case study or a theoretical framework in a disciplinary or professional context of their interest (2500 words for 15 CATS; 3000 words for 20 CATS; 5000-6000 words for 30 CATS).
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON ADMISSION
CIM Students – Please complete the optional module choice forms distributed during the induction programme and get approval from your personal tutors during the Personal Tutor Meeting. Please then submit your approved form to Gheerdhardhini (CIM PG Coordinator) in room B0.04 by Week 0: Wednesday, 25th September by 17.00 GMT.
External Students
- Computer Science – Please register your interest in the CIM module with the PG Administrator in your home department – Ms Sharon Hayes – by Week 1: Wednesday, 2rd October, 17.00 GMT.
- Life Sciences – Please contact the CIM PG Coordinator (Gheerdhardhini) via email (cim@warwick.ac.uk), to request your optional module choice by Week 1 : Thursday, 3rd October, 17.00 GMT.
- All other external students - Please contact the CIM PG Coordinator (Gheerdhardhini) via email (cim@warwick.ac.uk), to request your optional module choice by Week 1 : Wednesday, 2nd October, 17.00 GMT.
PLEASE NOTE
- Please be advised that you may be expected to have access to a laptop for some of these courses due to software requirements; the Centre is unable to provide a laptop for external students.
- Please be advised that some modules may have restricted numbers and places are allocated according to availability.
- Please note that a request does NOT guarantee a place on the module and is subject to availability.
- Gaining permission of a member of CIM teaching staff or a member of staff from your home department or filling in the eVision Module Registration (eMR) system with the desired module does NOT guarantee a place on that module.
- Requests after the specified deadline will not be considered.
- CIM PG Coordinator will get back confirming your place in the module by 27th September 2019 (For CIM students), or 4th October 2019 (For Life Sciences students).
- Only after confirmation of a place from CIM PG Coordinator can students’ home departments confirm their registration on eVision/MRM. Registrations by students who have not received confirmation of a place from CIM will be rejected via the system.
NOTE – The above-mentioned registration deadline also applies to the CIM optional modules running in Term 2. We will consider registrations again in the first week of Term 2, but only in relation to modules where there is availability.
We are normally unable to allow students (registered or auditing) to join/leave the module after the second week of it commencing.