Explore our Environmental Humanities taught Master's degree.

P-Q3PK

MA

1 year full-time;
2 years part-time

30 September 2024

English and Comparative Literary Studies

University of Warwick

Warwick is a thriving hub of Environmental HumanitiesLink opens in a new window research and teaching. The Environmental Humanities MA at Warwick draws on renowned expertise across the English Department, the wider Arts Faculty and specialist centres across the University to enhance your knowledge of the ways in which culture engages with the crucial environmental and ecological issues of our age.

The MA in Environmental Humanities at Warwick will introduce you to major debates around climate change, the Anthropocene, energy, sustainability, ecological futures and environmental justice. Drawing on a combination of seminars, research projects and fieldwork, you will deepen your critical understanding of key ecological concepts and methods, while developing your competence in analysing the implications and developments of the global environmental crisis and ongoing climate emergency. As important, you will be given the opportunity to think creatively about ways of connecting theory and practice.

Considering your position as a scholar and environmentally attuned global citizen, this MA will immerse you in the study of cultural responses to ecological questions from across the globe. You will take a core module in the history, theory and methodology of Environmental Humanities, choose from a range of modules that address various perspectives on climate change, environment, sustainability and ecology, and undertake fieldwork or write a dissertation on an (approved) topic of your choice with a specialised supervisor.

The MA in Environmental Humanities comprises the core module, Critical Environments, three further optional modules, and a Dissertation of 16,000 words or an equivalent fieldwork project. You can take one of your three optional modules from outside of the Faculty, including from the Centre for Global Sustainable Development (GSD), the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM), or the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL).

For more information, please visit the Environmental Humanities webpageLink opens in a new window on the English website.

Seminars consist of 5 to 12 students.

Contact hours comprise 4 hours of seminars a week, 2 office hours per member of staff, weekly reading groups, workshops and research seminars, and one-to-one Dissertation or fieldwork supervision in terms 2 and 3.

All essays are marked by two members of staff. The standard length for essays in modules on this course is 6,000 words; the Dissertation is 16,000 words. Marks are given out of 100.

For more information, please visit the Environmental Humanities webpageLink opens in a new window on the English website.

Your timetable

Your personalised timetable will be complete when you are registered for all modules, compulsory and optional, and you have been allocated to your lectures, seminars and other small group classes. Your compulsory modules will be registered for you, and you will be able to choose your optional modules when you join us.

65% in an undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a related subject.

Applicants may be required to provide a writing sample and/or personal statement to demonstrate suitability for the course.*

*For example, those applicants from a non-Humanities background but with strong elements in Environmental Studies.

• Band C
• IELTS overall score of 7.5, minimum component scores of two at 6.5/7.0 and the rest at 7.5 or above.

There are no additional entry requirements for this course.

Critical Environments

Critical Environments introduces key topics, concepts, methodologies and theoretical debates in the emergent field of environmental humanities, with special attention to its interdisciplinary origins. It allows students to navigate their own subsequent pathways through the MA in Environmental Humanities, depending on individual research interest. You will develop an informed perspective on a variety of areas, from debates over nature to the cultural registration of natural ecologies, histories and trajectories of pollution and waste, ecopoetics, the emergence of the Anthropocene, the energy humanities, ecological imperialism and more, all analysed through a world-ecological lens unique to Warwick Environmental Humanities. The module will provide a focused understanding of the cultural challenges in responding to such topics as climate change, environmental despoliation, species extinction, media ecology and truly sustainable futures.

Dissertation

The Dissertation offers you the opportunity to pursue your own research interests. You can develop any idea you’ve discovered in your modules or write on a completely new topic that matters to you. Our students choose an array of topics within the broadly conceived boundaries of ‘environmental humanities’: we’ll discuss your plans with you to make sure an available member of our teaching staff can support your topic.

Students often use their MA dissertations as springboards for PhD projects and have sometimes gone on to publish their work in scholarly journals.

You are also able to fulfil the dissertation requirement by opting for an extended fieldwork project, which will allow you to carry out your research using a combination of qualitative data-gathering and written analysis.

• Petrofiction: Studies in World Literature
• World Literature in the Anthropocene
• Ecopoetics
• Early Modern Ecologies
• The Caribbean: Reading the World Ecology
• Culture and Global Sustainable Development
• Ecological Futures: Transdisciplinary Approaches
• Ecologies: Science, Media and Culture
• Managing Creativity for Sustainable Development
• Urban Data
• Media, Policy and Markets

For more information, please visit the Environmental Humanities webpageLink opens in a new window on the English website.

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