HELGA. Nature, knowledge, and power in the Anthropocene

HELGA. Nature, knowledge, and power in the Anthropocene
Contemporary environmental challenges including climate change, mass extinctions, biodiversity loss, rampant pollution, and more demonstrate that the status quo will no longer be sufficient. In recent scholarship, the articulation of the current epoch as the Anthropocene, or human disturbance at a planetary scale, has shaped efforts to re-think approaches to research, policy, history, nature, and everyday life with profound consequences for all earth inhabitants. In this course, we will historicize and situate the Anthropocene, the knowledge and governance regimes that have shaped our current moment, and current efforts to respond to environmental challenges in particular around the themes of agriculture, food, energy, land-use, biodiversity, and nature.

In addition to introducing key concepts, fields, texts and approaches in environmental humanities and science and technology studies (STS), the course includes a significant focus on problem-based work. In the lectures and in individual projects, students will work with case studies based in Denmark and beyond related to course themes. Case studies could for example include rewilding projects in Denmark, climate change mitigation efforts in Copenhagen, or human-animal relations in a particular site. These cases as well as a secondary assignment will form the basis for peer and instructor feedback workshops and the final portfolio assignment.

The course will thus provide insight into how various nature, resource, climate and environmental issues take shape through specific perspectives and frameworks. At the same time, the course shows how Saxo's expertise can be used to understand the often-unspoken premises on which debates about the environment and climate are based, and thus how we as humanists can help to ask new questions and thereby work for a more equitable distribution of goods, problems and resources, locally and globally.

Please note that the majority of instruction and texts will be in English, however we will have guest lectures and group work in Danish and all written materials can be in Danish per student preferences.

OBS:
"Forskningsområde" indgår som en integreret del af:
- Metode 1: Feltarkæologi med forskningsområde (kun studerende på Forhistorisk Arkæologi)
- Kulturanalyse med forskningsområde (Etnologistuderende)
Blanketnavn: HELGA, 3.semester: Forskningsområde, efterår 2025

- Område 3: historieformidling med formidlingsteori og forskningsområde (Historiestuderende - se Historie, BA, lektionskatalog efterår 2025).
Blanketnavn: Historie, BA, 3.semester: Forskningsområde, efterår 2025