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Description
Studying the entanglements of art and ecology today means thinking in a condition of emergency. Yet such pressures paradoxically require us to think backwards: to understand our precarious condition resulting from a cumulative, extended history. This module explores how art and visual culture have shaped and reshaped understandings of the natural world and the place of human life within it. The class has two main aims. The first is to think about art鈥檚 enduring involvement with the environment in a capacious historical and geographical framework, focussing on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Atlantic world. The second aim is to survey recent literature from art history, literary studies, philosophy and the environmental humanities. This will give us purchase on critical terms for debate: nature, Anthropocene, extraction, justice, and others. Rather than simply examining how art has depicted 鈥榥ature鈥� or the environment, we will probe how different aspects of ecological thinking (about materials, geographies, and communities) have put pressure on artistic form and process. Visits to museums and galleries in London will form an integral part of the module.
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 8th April 2024.
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