Module GEOG3A17: More-Than-Human Geographies

Department: Geography

GEOG3A17: More-Than-Human Geographies

Prerequisites

• Any level 2 Geography module

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To introduce and critically explore key ideas, concepts and debates in more-than-human geographies.
• To understand how social and cultural geographers engage with contemporary environmental issues and their impacts on more-than-human life – e.g. extinction, climate change, animal ethics, environmental degradation, toxicity.
• To explore questions of voice, representation and agency in more-than-human contexts
• To understand how human geography sits within multidisciplinary fields e.g. animal studies and the environmental humanities

Content

• More-than-human geographies have challenged the centrality of the human in western thought and politics with far-reaching implications for human geography. The module explores how rethinking the relationship between humans and nature has expanded geography’s field of inquiry to include animal lifeworlds, vegetal geographies, and the agency of minerals, matter and objects.
• In critiquing human exceptionalism, the module will explore how more-than-human geographies pose difficult questions at a time of profound ecological change: How do animals rework our understandings of cities and compose urban life? Can an ocean have rights and do plants have agency? And how might grief cut across species lines? In doing so the module examines the challenges that more-than-human geographies pose for questions of agency, voice and representation, and the diverse knowledges that are mobilised to critically examine human-nature relations. This includes consideration of more-than-human methods that have experimented with different ways of sensing such as multispecies ethnography, storytelling, and digital approaches.
• Indicative issues include the cultural geographies of extinction, the promises and challenges of multispecies justice, the ethics posed by ‘species on the move’, and the contested politics of conservation. The module asks students to critically examine how non-human life appears in media and public discourse, how different forms of environmentalism mobilise cultural representations to create feeling and connection, and how non-human rights are engaged in official narratives. The module will draw on contemporary examples such as the Australian ‘Black Summer’, the plastics crisis, avian flu, oceanic conservation, and the exotic wildlife trade to reflect on how more-than-human concepts might facilitate understanding of some of the world’s most pressing ecological issues.

Learning Outcomes

• On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
• Demonstrate advanced knowledge and understanding of how more-than-human geographies have challenged human exceptionalism and cultures of knowledge
• Demonstrate critical understanding of how social and cultural geographers engage with contemporary environmental issues and questions of voice, representation and agency.

• On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
• Think critically and engage with key concepts and debates in more-than-human geographies
• Evaluate representations of more-than-human life and human-nature relations
• Apply key concepts in more-than-human geographies to contemporary problems and issues.

• On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
• Demonstrate clear academic written communication skills.
• Demonstrate the ability to critically reflect upon the relations between academic and non-academic sources of knowledge.
• Demonstrate the ability to synthesise information and to relate academic concepts to contemporary issues and problems.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures will introduce students to the main module themes through contemporary cases and more-than-human approaches
• Workshops will examine cultural representations of environmental issues through diverse formats to facilitate discussion and provide feedback on summative ideas.
• Summative assessment: students are required to provide a critical evaluation that cuts across the module’s key themes.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Workshop discussion and feedback

■ Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.