Ecological crisis is commonly declined as a “technical” issue: so the aim is to develop a series of restorative strategies in order to keep alive the consolidated systemic frames and considering the “environment” as a simple inert background of our human epos. Contrariwise, the planet crisis involves the shared visions of the world, the ways, always conflicting and socially connoted, the living beings look, name, think and narrate the ecological space by which they are in turn determined. For some years now, scholars from different geographical and knowledge areas, forcing their respective disciplinary boundaries, have been trying to understand the complex character of the entanglements between human and non-human, between living beings and the realm of the inanimate, which characterize the common ecological space. The course introduces students to this new research domain, the environmental humanities, where an alliance grows between humanities (philosophy, literature, the arts, etc.), social sciences (anthropology, environmental history, sociology, economics, political ecology, geography, etc.) and natural sciences (biology, ecology, etc.) aimed at critically rethink the terms of the environmental issue.
Curriculum
scheda docente
materiale didattico
After defining the core characteristics and contents of the field of Environmental Humanities, we will focus on how the human and social sciences today position themselves in relation to the regulative ontology of the neoliberal growth system. This system is based on an apparently contradictory blend of vitalist unleashing and rational anticipatory ordering, where the stakes are no longer the disciplining of life (at all levels), but rather the possibility of profiting from indeterminacy and the continuous release of energy.
In response to this governmental scenario, social theory has taken various paths, which will be explored during the first part of the course: from the so-called “ontological turn” to feminist new materialisms, from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to speculative realism, from Marxist political ecology to degrowth.
- Romano O., D'Alisa G., “Degrowth and limits”, in A. Machin e M. Wissenburg (a cura di), Handbook of Environmental Political Theory in the Anthropocene, (pp. 99-108), Cheltham : Edward Elgar Publishing 2025 [doi: 10.4337/9781802208955.00016].
Programma
(Environmental Sociology Module: 2 ECTS credits)After defining the core characteristics and contents of the field of Environmental Humanities, we will focus on how the human and social sciences today position themselves in relation to the regulative ontology of the neoliberal growth system. This system is based on an apparently contradictory blend of vitalist unleashing and rational anticipatory ordering, where the stakes are no longer the disciplining of life (at all levels), but rather the possibility of profiting from indeterminacy and the continuous release of energy.
In response to this governmental scenario, social theory has taken various paths, which will be explored during the first part of the course: from the so-called “ontological turn” to feminist new materialisms, from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to speculative realism, from Marxist political ecology to degrowth.
Testi Adottati
- Pellizzoni L., Cavalcare l’ingovernabile. Natura, neoliberalismo e nuovi materialismi, Orthotes, Napoli-Salerno 2023 [cap. 1, pp. 15-52; cap. 3, pp. 77-142].- Romano O., D'Alisa G., “Degrowth and limits”, in A. Machin e M. Wissenburg (a cura di), Handbook of Environmental Political Theory in the Anthropocene, (pp. 99-108), Cheltham : Edward Elgar Publishing 2025 [doi: 10.4337/9781802208955.00016].
Modalità Frequenza
In addition to attending lessons in person, students will be encouraged to contribute with comments, observations, questions, as well as to participate in collective discussions in the classroom.Modalità Valutazione
Oral interview on the topics developed during of the course.
scheda docente
materiale didattico
Environmental history is a way of observing and understanding the relationship between human societies and the rest of nature over time. Rather than a discipline, environmental history acknowledges soils, animals, climates, waters, and the variety of life on Earth as co-participants in human history. This leads to narratives that, using nature archives and human sediments, climatological algorithms and tourist postcards, stratigraphic measurements and peasant testimonies, to name a few examples, creatively re-bundle the unity of the experience of life (human and more-than-human) on the planet. Environmental history inhabits the interdisciplinary constellation of Environmental Humanities, imprinting methodological rigor and a space-time context. The module will present the educational framework of global and Italian environmental history, focusing on some case studies that best align with the investigative agenda of Environmental Humanities.
Bibliografia
• Biasillo, Roberta. Storia globale dell’ambiente. Roma: Carocci, 2025 (Introduzione e cap. 6)
• Environment and Society Portal, Rachel Carson Center/LMU/Deutsch Museum, 2008-2025 https://www.environmentandsociety.org/ (for attending students: a selection of content will be indicated during the course. For non-attending students: choose a selection of 3-5 contents in different formats – e.g., 1 video, 1 magazine article, 1 exhibition, 1 podcast, 1 storymap, etc.)
• Biasillo, Roberta. Storia globale dell’ambiente. Roma: Carocci, 2025 (Introduzione e cap. 6)
• Environment and Society Portal, Rachel Carson Center/LMU/Deutsch Museum, 2008-2025 https://www.environmentandsociety.org/ (free selection of 3-5 contents)
Programma
Environmental History Module: Prof. Stefania GalliniEnvironmental history is a way of observing and understanding the relationship between human societies and the rest of nature over time. Rather than a discipline, environmental history acknowledges soils, animals, climates, waters, and the variety of life on Earth as co-participants in human history. This leads to narratives that, using nature archives and human sediments, climatological algorithms and tourist postcards, stratigraphic measurements and peasant testimonies, to name a few examples, creatively re-bundle the unity of the experience of life (human and more-than-human) on the planet. Environmental history inhabits the interdisciplinary constellation of Environmental Humanities, imprinting methodological rigor and a space-time context. The module will present the educational framework of global and Italian environmental history, focusing on some case studies that best align with the investigative agenda of Environmental Humanities.
Bibliografia
• Biasillo, Roberta. Storia globale dell’ambiente. Roma: Carocci, 2025 (Introduzione e cap. 6)
• Environment and Society Portal, Rachel Carson Center/LMU/Deutsch Museum, 2008-2025 https://www.environmentandsociety.org/ (for attending students: a selection of content will be indicated during the course. For non-attending students: choose a selection of 3-5 contents in different formats – e.g., 1 video, 1 magazine article, 1 exhibition, 1 podcast, 1 storymap, etc.)
Testi Adottati
• Biasillo, Roberta. Storia globale dell’ambiente. Roma: Carocci, 2025 (Introduzione e cap. 6)
• Environment and Society Portal, Rachel Carson Center/LMU/Deutsch Museum, 2008-2025 https://www.environmentandsociety.org/ (free selection of 3-5 contents)
scheda docente
materiale didattico
U. Fracassa, “Celati verso la foce” (in, Effetti reali. La non fiction tra Italia, Francia, Spagna e America Latina Carabba, 2025)
Programma
The italian journey occupies a very peculiar position in the periegetic genre, at least since the century of the Grand Tour. In the second half of the 20th century, particularly between the early 1950s and the end of the 1980s, a number of Italian writers, sometimes with the collaboration of a photographer, tried to turn a “sustainable gaze” on such a celebrated landscape. By following the course of inland waters, first and foremost the Po River, that is, by favouring riverbanks and plains over riverside panoramas and the amenity of the reliefs, authors such as Cesare Zavattini and Gianni Celati put into practice an ecology of the gaze. Also thanks to the comparison with other literary journeys on the course of great rivers (cf. C. Magris, Danube, 1986) in which the landscape remains a privileged occasion for leaps of historical-geographical erudition, the analysis of the writings of the two Emilian authors will allow the introduction of concepts (nescience, wholesomeness) capable of founding a paradigm, alternative to that of traditional odeporics.Testi Adottati
F. Careri, Walkscapes. Camminare come pratica estetica, Einaudi 2006 (una selezione di paragrafi a cura del docente sarà proposta nel corso delle lezioni)U. Fracassa, “Celati verso la foce” (in, Effetti reali. La non fiction tra Italia, Francia, Spagna e America Latina Carabba, 2025)
Modalità Frequenza
Attendance is free and will not be recorded by the teacher. Attendance is necessary but not compulsory.
scheda docente
materiale didattico
After defining the core characteristics and contents of the field of Environmental Humanities, we will focus on how the human and social sciences today position themselves in relation to the regulative ontology of the neoliberal growth system. This system is based on an apparently contradictory blend of vitalist unleashing and rational anticipatory ordering, where the stakes are no longer the disciplining of life (at all levels), but rather the possibility of profiting from indeterminacy and the continuous release of energy.
In response to this governmental scenario, social theory has taken various paths, which will be explored during the first part of the course: from the so-called “ontological turn” to feminist new materialisms, from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to speculative realism, from Marxist political ecology to degrowth.
- Romano O., D'Alisa G., “Degrowth and limits”, in A. Machin e M. Wissenburg (a cura di), Handbook of Environmental Political Theory in the Anthropocene, (pp. 99-108), Cheltham : Edward Elgar Publishing 2025 [doi: 10.4337/9781802208955.00016].
Programma
(Environmental Sociology Module: 2 ECTS credits)After defining the core characteristics and contents of the field of Environmental Humanities, we will focus on how the human and social sciences today position themselves in relation to the regulative ontology of the neoliberal growth system. This system is based on an apparently contradictory blend of vitalist unleashing and rational anticipatory ordering, where the stakes are no longer the disciplining of life (at all levels), but rather the possibility of profiting from indeterminacy and the continuous release of energy.
In response to this governmental scenario, social theory has taken various paths, which will be explored during the first part of the course: from the so-called “ontological turn” to feminist new materialisms, from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to speculative realism, from Marxist political ecology to degrowth.
Testi Adottati
- Pellizzoni L., Cavalcare l’ingovernabile. Natura, neoliberalismo e nuovi materialismi, Orthotes, Napoli-Salerno 2023 [cap. 1, pp. 15-52; cap. 3, pp. 77-142].- Romano O., D'Alisa G., “Degrowth and limits”, in A. Machin e M. Wissenburg (a cura di), Handbook of Environmental Political Theory in the Anthropocene, (pp. 99-108), Cheltham : Edward Elgar Publishing 2025 [doi: 10.4337/9781802208955.00016].
Modalità Frequenza
In addition to attending lessons in person, students will be encouraged to contribute with comments, observations, questions, as well as to participate in collective discussions in the classroom.Modalità Valutazione
Oral interview on the topics developed during of the course.
scheda docente
materiale didattico
Environmental history is a way of observing and understanding the relationship between human societies and the rest of nature over time. Rather than a discipline, environmental history acknowledges soils, animals, climates, waters, and the variety of life on Earth as co-participants in human history. This leads to narratives that, using nature archives and human sediments, climatological algorithms and tourist postcards, stratigraphic measurements and peasant testimonies, to name a few examples, creatively re-bundle the unity of the experience of life (human and more-than-human) on the planet. Environmental history inhabits the interdisciplinary constellation of Environmental Humanities, imprinting methodological rigor and a space-time context. The module will present the educational framework of global and Italian environmental history, focusing on some case studies that best align with the investigative agenda of Environmental Humanities.
Bibliografia
• Biasillo, Roberta. Storia globale dell’ambiente. Roma: Carocci, 2025 (Introduzione e cap. 6)
• Environment and Society Portal, Rachel Carson Center/LMU/Deutsch Museum, 2008-2025 https://www.environmentandsociety.org/ (for attending students: a selection of content will be indicated during the course. For non-attending students: choose a selection of 3-5 contents in different formats – e.g., 1 video, 1 magazine article, 1 exhibition, 1 podcast, 1 storymap, etc.)
• Biasillo, Roberta. Storia globale dell’ambiente. Roma: Carocci, 2025 (Introduzione e cap. 6)
• Environment and Society Portal, Rachel Carson Center/LMU/Deutsch Museum, 2008-2025 https://www.environmentandsociety.org/ (free selection of 3-5 contents)
Programma
Environmental History Module: Prof. Stefania GalliniEnvironmental history is a way of observing and understanding the relationship between human societies and the rest of nature over time. Rather than a discipline, environmental history acknowledges soils, animals, climates, waters, and the variety of life on Earth as co-participants in human history. This leads to narratives that, using nature archives and human sediments, climatological algorithms and tourist postcards, stratigraphic measurements and peasant testimonies, to name a few examples, creatively re-bundle the unity of the experience of life (human and more-than-human) on the planet. Environmental history inhabits the interdisciplinary constellation of Environmental Humanities, imprinting methodological rigor and a space-time context. The module will present the educational framework of global and Italian environmental history, focusing on some case studies that best align with the investigative agenda of Environmental Humanities.
Bibliografia
• Biasillo, Roberta. Storia globale dell’ambiente. Roma: Carocci, 2025 (Introduzione e cap. 6)
• Environment and Society Portal, Rachel Carson Center/LMU/Deutsch Museum, 2008-2025 https://www.environmentandsociety.org/ (for attending students: a selection of content will be indicated during the course. For non-attending students: choose a selection of 3-5 contents in different formats – e.g., 1 video, 1 magazine article, 1 exhibition, 1 podcast, 1 storymap, etc.)
Testi Adottati
• Biasillo, Roberta. Storia globale dell’ambiente. Roma: Carocci, 2025 (Introduzione e cap. 6)
• Environment and Society Portal, Rachel Carson Center/LMU/Deutsch Museum, 2008-2025 https://www.environmentandsociety.org/ (free selection of 3-5 contents)
scheda docente
materiale didattico
U. Fracassa, “Celati verso la foce” (in, Effetti reali. La non fiction tra Italia, Francia, Spagna e America Latina Carabba, 2025)
Programma
The italian journey occupies a very peculiar position in the periegetic genre, at least since the century of the Grand Tour. In the second half of the 20th century, particularly between the early 1950s and the end of the 1980s, a number of Italian writers, sometimes with the collaboration of a photographer, tried to turn a “sustainable gaze” on such a celebrated landscape. By following the course of inland waters, first and foremost the Po River, that is, by favouring riverbanks and plains over riverside panoramas and the amenity of the reliefs, authors such as Cesare Zavattini and Gianni Celati put into practice an ecology of the gaze. Also thanks to the comparison with other literary journeys on the course of great rivers (cf. C. Magris, Danube, 1986) in which the landscape remains a privileged occasion for leaps of historical-geographical erudition, the analysis of the writings of the two Emilian authors will allow the introduction of concepts (nescience, wholesomeness) capable of founding a paradigm, alternative to that of traditional odeporics.Testi Adottati
F. Careri, Walkscapes. Camminare come pratica estetica, Einaudi 2006 (una selezione di paragrafi a cura del docente sarà proposta nel corso delle lezioni)U. Fracassa, “Celati verso la foce” (in, Effetti reali. La non fiction tra Italia, Francia, Spagna e America Latina Carabba, 2025)
Modalità Frequenza
Attendance is free and will not be recorded by the teacher. Attendance is necessary but not compulsory.