JK35001 Introduction-Focus I Seminar (SEG) B

Numbering Code Year/Term 2022 ・ First semester
Number of Credits 2 Course Type special lecture
Target Year Target Student
Language English Day/Period Thu.3
Instructor name ERICSON, Kjell David (Graduate School of Letters Program-Specific Senior Lecturer)
Outline and Purpose of the Course When we conjure up "the environment" in our mind’s eye, what do we see? Perhaps we envision mountains, trees, streams, and waves--scenes where humans don’t appear or make only transient visits. Some of us could think about holistic linkages among all living creatures and their surroundings. Others among us may imagine how human societies have exploited and polluted relationships to non-human spaces. We might also "see" worldwide phenomena that are less obviously visible from a single vantage point, most notably climate change.

This course invites us to reflect upon the multiplicity of environments and environmental thinking around the world, at a moment defined by global-scale environmental crises and human impacts. Some questions are: How have ways of understanding the environment, sustainability, and nature emerged, interacted, and changed? Can we study the world through approaches that go beyond human perspectives alone?
Course Goals ・The course will introduce you to the multi-stranded field of environmental history, which is animated by desires both to understand the past on its own terms and to bring the past to bear on present-day problems.

・The course will press us to think about how environmental ideas structure people’s everyday lives and inform their political priorities. We will consider these issues by looking closely at recent English-language research related to the Japanese archipelago and its environs. We will explore how concepts of nature, human artifice, resources, pollution, science, conservation, war, and food have functioned in Japan. By the same token, we will survey "more-than-human" approaches to understanding environments. We are lucky in this course to have a rich space in which to pursue these possibilities on the ground: Kyoto and its surroundings.

・By the end of the course, you will be prepared to conduct research related to environmental history from new points of view.
Schedule and Contents Week 1. Introduction

I. Approaches to Environmental History
Week 2. The Trouble with Wilderness
Week 3. Envirotech
Week 4. Climate History

II. Narrating Environmental Transformation
Week 5. Visualizing and Managing Land and Sea
Week 6. Changes in the Land
Week 7. Nature and Empire
Week 8. War
Week 9. The Archives of Environmental History

III. Environmentalisms
Week 10. Knowing Harm
Week 11. Conceptual Interlude 1
Week 12. Disaster
Week 13. Conceptual Interlude 2
Week 14. Environmentalisms

Week 15. Presentations and Feedback

(Please note that the precise topics and order are both subject to change.)
Evaluation Methods and Policy Attendance, participation, and presentations in class (25%)
Short weekly reading responses (25%)
Final paper (50%)

To JDTS/MATS students: This is course can be taken as either reduced (4 ECTS) or full seminar (8 ECTS). Please indicate your ECTS requirement to the teacher.
Course Requirements None
Study outside of Class (preparation and review) ・Students are required to read through assigned readings and prepared for the discussions and presentations each week.
・Students are expected to actively participate in preparations for the final project.
Textbooks Textbooks/References At least one copy of the books should be available in the library and through the university's online subscriptions, although in some cases (particularly during the weeks where you are responsible for presenting) it may be advisable to purchase a new or used copy for yourself.
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