History and the Environment: The Middle East

Catalog description

What is "the environment" and how can we conceptualize its history? Many historians are concerned with questions of voice, agency and power. How do we deal with these questions when writing about non-human actors like donkeys, cotton and coral reefs? Does focusing on the roles of non-human actors obscure other human dynamics like class, race, gender and sexuality? Further, the scholarly consensus on climate change and the varied responses to that consensus have motivated historians to contribute to the public discussion more actively. What is the relationship between understandings of environmental history and environmental activism? We will address these and other questions using the Middle East region as a case study, paying particular attention to how historians have approached these challenges in conversation with ecologists and other natural scientists. Students will also have the opportunity to write short environmental histories based on field trips, interviews, and sojourns into the digital humanities in the final part of the course.