SMJ09050 Environmental Studies

It seems humankind want to live sustainably. In opinion surveys, environmental concerns top the list of most important issues. Environmental perspectives have risen up the agenda across key fields of policy research and social change, new media and reportage, creative writing and the 'new humanities', requiring practitioners in these fields to develop critical knowledge of the sciences and technologies at stake. Whether considering leaders of nations and corporations, environmentalist and oppositional movements, or Indigenous and other marginalised peoples, all have real issues at stake and demand voices in the debates.

The sub-major provides the scope to explore these fields in some depth. It begins with an introduction to the politics and science of climate change. Students then investigate interactions between the life sciences and the social sciences; what drives ecological degradation and what is claimed to take us beyond it into a future of 'post-nature' driven by biotechnologies and global ecological risk management. In the final subject students investigate environmental values, exploring different cultural expressions, changing meanings of nature, and their relationship to it. Ranging across the political, the economic, the cultural and the technological, the sub-major offers a solid grounding in this vital arena.

Further information on this sub-major can be found at:

Completion requirements