Subject Area: Environmental Humanities

The course provides an overview of the inherent vulnerability of industrial civilization to self-generated hazard using a variety of recent and current examples including climate change, toxic chemicals and nuclear power. It will explain the role of predominant understandings in constituting these vulnerabilities and discuss and advance potential alternatives. The course pays particular attention to ongoing tensions between expert and non-expert, particularly lay, perspectives; the importance and value of attending to lay insights, and the challenges this presents policy, politics and broader professional practice. It will also explore the way analogous vulnerabilities are evident in other domains and fields, such as those of finance and security, and thus provides a useful complement to many areas of study other than the Environmental Humanities.