School of Arts and Sciences
Environmental Studies Program

Track V: Environmental Humanities

Environmental Humanities examines a wide range of cultural expressions and artistic representations of environmental issues in order to understand the values that shape and determine human beings' relationship to the environment. Bringing together philosophical, historical, political, and imaginative perspectives and contexts, this track concentrates on justice, ethics, activism, and social change. The goal is to enable students to perceive and analyze deep ideological structures that have constructed human concepts and behaviors with regard to the environment and explore questions such as What ethical and cultural values have shaped human beings' relation to the environment? What values should shape that relationship? What is the role of the human imagination in arriving at knowledge about the environment? How does such knowledge differ across cultures and what can we learn from those differences?. Coursework emphasizes the fundamental importance of humanistic values in the struggle for planetary health and environmental justice.

View sample paths for Track V: Environmental Humanities

Students focusing on the Environmental Humanities Track must take the following track courses in addition to other general requirements:

Applied Environmental Studies Stand-alone Majors:

  • Four elective courses

Environmental Studies Co-Majors:

  • Five courses as follows:
    • One Introductory course
    • One Methods/Research course
    • Three elective courses
      Note: Courses must come from at least two different departments and include one seminar (*)

Unlisted courses that are environmentally-themed might be requested to count toward specific requirements (introductory, research/methods and advanced courses/seminars). Examples might include Experimental College classes or Advanced Independent Research courses offered by different departments. In order to have an unlisted course added to a track, you must complete a Course Petition form and submit it to environmentalstudies(@tufts.edu).

Attention: This list is a general guide. Some courses might not be taught every year. Please double-check the current semester course listing and/or SIS.

Introductory (only for Co-majors)

  • ENG/ENV 160 Environmental Justice and World Literature (Spring)
  • ENG/ENV 176 Earth Matters *
  • ENV 140 Environment, History, and Justice (Variable)
  • ENV 110 Environmental Humanities (Fall - variable)
  • ENV 111/HIST 102 Global Environmental History (Fall - odd years)

Methods/Research (only for Co-majors)

  • ENV 120 Intro to Environmental Fieldwork: From Class to Community (Fall, Spring)
  • ENV 170 Environmental Data Visualization (Fall)

Electives

  • ANTH 024 Anthropology of the Environment (Fall)
  • ANTH 142 American Meat (Variable)
  • ANTH 174 Thinking with Plants (Variable)
  • ANTH 178 Animals and Posthuman Thought * (Variable)
  • CLS 185 Pestilence in Antiquity: Ecology of Infectious Disease in the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean (Fall)
  • ENG/ENV 160 Environmental Justice and World Literature * - if not taken as an intro class (Spring)
  • ENG/ENV 176 Earth Matters * - if not taken as an intro class (Fall)
  • ENV 111/HIST 102 Global Environmental History -  if not taken as an intro class (Fall - odd years) 
  • GER/ENV 182 Imagining the Environment: Crosscultural Perspectives* (Spring)
  • HIST 193 Indigenous Peoples of North America * (Spring)
  • ILCS 065 Animals Crossing: East Asian Literature and Media
  • PHIL 028 Climate Change Ethics (Fall)
  • RCD 179-3 Beyond the Human: Creative and Critical Ecologies * (Spring)
  • SMFA 155 Interdisciplinary Practices: Science, Art and Cultivating Knowledge (Variable)
  • VMS 129 The Greening of Art: Ecology, Sustainability and Sculpture Since 1970 (Fall)