The 2025 SIAH application is now open! The application deadline is March 3.
Earthworlds: Life in a Turbulent Planet
Summer 2025 (Dates TBD)
We don’t live on Earth. We live in it, caught in the whirl of energy, story, matter, and meaning through which a planet becomes a home. But whose home? And how? In this course, we will investigate the interconnectedness of Earthly beings, elements, and narratives through which humans and other organisms fashion their worlds. Offering an introduction to the interdisciplinary field known as environmental humanities, the course will invite students to think about how different organisms, peoples, bodies, and stories make (and remake) worlds within the Earth. We will ask how planetary forces shape life here in Cascadia, on the edge of the Pacific, and how our locality is entangled with other sites and histories. We will trace the movement of species and peoples; examine Earthforms like rivers and mountains alongside nominally-human infrastructures like cities, plantations, and roads. Together, we will trouble the difference between human and natural history and contemplate elements like stone, water, air, water and fire. We will ask how differential identities of race, sexuality, religion, culture, and species are intertwined with infrastructures of power, energy, politics, religion, and law.
The course will be modeled on collaborative projects like The Feral Atlas and Cascadia Field Guide which invite readers to explore the entanglements between art and science, humans and other species. These projects provide models both for our own inquiry, and the collaborative sprit in which it will be undertaken. Course materials will range widely, including poems, essays, novels, films, and other media. We will also get outside the classroom through field trips and excursions. Assignments will provide opportunities to explore writing in different styles. Students will conduct research projects of their own design, and have the option of pursuing creative alternatives to more traditional academic essays (maps, stories, films, video games, art installations, apps, songs) and/or of pursuing collaborative projects if they so choose.
Learn more about the 2025 teaching team, application process, and sign up for an information session (dates TBA).