Create a New Narrative for a Just and Sustainable Future
With a minor in Environmental Humanities, you’ll be prepared to help educate and bring to light the environmental injustices affecting vulnerable communities and populations due to climate change.
As the world grapples with the consequences of climate change and strives to protect natural habitats and resources, there is a need to deftly write and speak knowledgeably about nature and the environment.
A minor in Environmental Humanities allows you to investigate how cultural narratives, attitudes and perceptions, ethics, social structures, and art shape our language about nature and interactions with the environment. You’ll learn to apply methods and modes of analysis traditionally associated with the arts and humanities to explore, better understand and write about nature and the environment.
The Environmental Humanities minor is open to St. Edward’s undergraduates of all disciplines and is based in the Department of Literature, Writing, and Rhetoric. Students may choose to couple this minor with related areas of study such as Environmental Biology and Climate Change, or create other interdisciplinary opportunities with majors such as Philosophy, Religious Studies, Communication or Writing and Rhetoric in the School of Arts and Humanities.
What will you learn?
You’ll hone the creative, ethical and conceptual skills to develop a persuasive and engaging narrative for sustainability. Environmental agencies and nonprofits need clear, effective communicators to widen the reach of their programs. Government officials and NGOs need staffers with the skills and knowledge to produce clear, accurate and powerful content to explain the effects of climate change and the need to act quickly to arrest its dangers. It is difficult to imagine a field that is not already being affected by the realities of climate change.
Degree Requirements
In addition to the following 18 hours of minor requirements, students must satisfy all General Requirements for a Minor (page 49 of the Undergraduate Bulletin PDF) to be eligible to complete this minor.
Environmental Writing Required Course, 3 hours selected from:
- Special Creative Writing Workshop (when topic is Environmental Writing) – WRIT 2304
- Environmental Writing – WRIT 2316
- Topics in Intermediate Creative Writing (when topic is Environmental Writing) – WRIT 3310
Moral Reasoning Required Course, 3 hours selected from:
- PHIL 3312 Environmental Ethics – WRIT 3310
- Topics in Social Justice and Critical Methodologies (when topic is Faith and Ecology) – RELS 2342
Social Justice in Practice Required Course, 3 hours selected from:
- Social Movement Communication and Public Advocacy – COMM 3370
- Social and Environmental Corporate Communication – COMM 4382
- Theater for Social Change – THAR 2321
- Topics in Visual Studies (when topic is Art, Social Practice and Activism) – VISU 2399
An additional 9 hours are selected from directed electives in visual arts, journalism, and literature or from the above areas of study. For current offerings and course descriptions, view and download the Undergraduate Bulletin (PDF).
For questions about the Environmental Humanities minor, contact your success coach or Sasha West, PhD, associate professor of Creative Writing, who coordinates the program: swest1@stedwards.edu. To declare the minor, fill out the “Student Curriculum Change Request” form on MyHilltop.