Environmental Humanities

Overview

The environmental humanities is an interdisciplinary field that puts the traditional humanities (literature, history, philosophy, communication) in dialogue with the natural sciences to address environmental issues. In particular, scholars in the environmental humanities often focus on topics such as public policy, environmental ethics, animal ethics, "green advertising," consumer culture, activism, news reporting, and science writing ("What Is..."; Corbett).

1. Three Examples of Environmental Humanities

While many foundational texts in the environmental humanities arguably date to Antiquity, more recent texts that address such issues include the following:

• Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) is often described as an example of science writing, but it incorporates elements of narrative journalism to relate technical concepts to a broad audience. It's a foundational text for any environmentalist.

• Leo Marx's The Machine in the Garden (1964) and Raymond Williams's The Country and the City (1973) explore "pastoralism," or the cultural construction of pastoral, rural spaces (including the many assumptions that accompany such views). Marx and Williams are literary critics.

• Ramachandra Guha and Juan Martínez-Alier's “The Environmentalism of the Poor” (1997) considers the role of global politics in shaping environmental issues, particularly the issues uniquely faced by the impoverished (and those living in the Global South)

These are three examples of how the humanities can influence the natural sciences. Carson's work is combines science and journalism in many ways, and the role of Silent Spring in creating grassroots activism is still studied today. L. Marx and Williams show how literature constitutes our discourse surrounding "nature" and "culture," and Guha and Martínez-Alier expose how environmental issues are always already embedded within political hierarchies.

2. Methods and Approaches

Environmental humanities scholars may adopt a variety of approaches depending on their backgrounds. For example, some scholars may do empirical studies such as qualitative surveys (e.g., to analyze the real-world impact of climate fiction). Others may use art to reflect on our attentiveness (or lack thereof) toward nonhuman animals (e.g., in cultivating "arts of attentiveness").

In other words, while some researchers use scientific approaches, others deliberately aim to avoid scientific methods. This may seem troubling to academics who tend to stress the rigor of scholarly research, but the environmental humanities also allows academics to "think outside the box" when dealing with environmental issues.

The environmental humanities can help us describe the world with greater accuracy and address topics beyond science, such as ethics, language and meaning, culture, and aesthetics.

3. References

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. 1962. Reprint, Mariner Books Classic, 2022.

Corbett, Julia. Communicating Nature: How We Create and Understand Environmental Messages. Island Press, 2006.

van Dooren, Thom, Eben Kirksey, Ursula Münster. "Multispecies Studies: Cultivating Arts of Attentiveness." Environmental Humanities, vol. 8, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1–23.

Guha, Ramachandra, and Juan Martínez-Alier. “The Environmentalism of the Poor,” Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South, Earthscan, 1997, pp. 3-21.

Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. Oxford UP, 1964. Thirty-Fifth Anniversary Edition, 2000.

Schneider-Mayerson, Matthew. "The Influence of Climate Fiction: An Empirical Survey of Readers." Environmental Humanities, vol. 10, no. 2, 2018, pp. 473–500.

"What is the Environmental Humanities?" The Environmental Humanities at UCLA, http://environmental.humanities.ucla.edu/?page_id=52. Accessed 21 May, 2023.

Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. Oxford UP, 1973.