Mapping the Human Dimensions of Sustainability and Environment
This year, the Humanities Institute is placing a focus on sustainability in one of its interdisciplinary faculty seminars. The seminar entitled, Mapping the Human Dimensions of Sustainability and Environment, is composed of an eclectic group of thinkers from the departments of Religion, Communications, Environmental Studies, Biology, History, English and Interdisciplinary Humanities. According to the Humanities Institute, members of the seminar will be, “working together to examine critical issues at the intersection of the humanities and environmental studies.”
In the first half of the seminar, the group is taking a closer look at the methodologies through which the humanities have engaged issues like environmental change. In other words, examining how people understand environmental change around them. Human understanding of environmental issues isn’t exclusively formed by measuring ice core samples or ocean temperatures. Conceptions of environmental change are shaped by many factors and through many senses. Science comes to life through literature like Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, through art like that created by Agnes Denes or Chris Jordan, through the writings of environmental historians and philosophers like John Muir and Aldo Leopold, and through the teachings of eco-theologians like Thomas Berry.
Given the infinite means of human interaction with environmental change, this is no small task. But, the hope is to discover which methods have been most effective in bridging science and humanity.
The second half of the seminar will then be dedicated to developing specific pedagogical strategies that will help educators effectively communicate environmental change around them. In keeping and in addition to this goal, the group also plans to create a comprehensive environmental history of the Piedmont region that will combine, “geographic information systems (GIS) techniques with community asset mapping and other cultural inputs,” according to Lucas Johnston the group’s convener. The project will take advantage of the interdisciplinary nature of the group by harnessing the capabilities of GIS technology to display the complexities of the short- and long-term changes that have shaped the environment of the Piedmont.
In today’s world, where environmental change must be framed within the context of economic, social and political considerations, the merits of an interdisciplinary understanding of environmental issues seem hard to overemphasize.
For more information about the seminar from the Humanities Institute click here.
By Joey DeRosa, Communications and Outreach Intern