Minor in Environmental Humanities

Environmental Humanities (EnvHum) emerges as a fast expanding interdisciplinary area of research and study in recent decades, as witnessed in the intersections among academic disciplines, ranging from environmental history, environmental ethics and aesthetics, ecocriticism, critical animal studies, eco-linguistics, environmental psychology, environmental sociology, sustainable urban planning, environmental communications studies, and other sub-disciplines. The programme brings all these disciplines together so as to promote innovative, pluralistic and boundary-crossing environmental thinking and practices. 

The programme aims to introduce recent discussions and debates in EnvHum that center on three aspects: how human language, culture and society play a role in facilitating our understanding of ecology and the environment in contemporary world; the rethinking of what nature and culture mean in an age of environmental challenges; and redefining the relationships between human beings and the more-than-human-world (that includes animals, plants, nonliving matters and the environment).

The Minor in Environmental Humanities is open to all undergraduate students across the university interested in delving into environmental issues from an interdisciplinary lens.

Students will have to read 5 courses totalling at least 15 AUs in total for this programme. There will be a core compulsory course (HV5001: Introduction to Environmental Humanities), and four other courses from list of courses below.

The compulsory course is designed to provide students with essential knowledge under this Minor in Environmental Humanities (EnvHum). In lieu of the existing prerequisites, HV5001 Introduction to Environmental Humanities will serve as an equivalent pre-requisite to all EnvHum students. Students who have declared their intent to read the Minor will then be able to take EnvHum courses even if they do not have the necessary course-based prerequisites. 

Students will read the courses below as Broadening & Deepening Electives (BDEs).

• AY2023-24S1 HV5001 Intro to EnvHum Outline

Students can take any four courses from this list:

• HC2017 Writing Places: Nativism, Ecology, Politics 地文誌: 从乡土文学到生态批评​(Offered in Mandarin)
• HC3018 Posthumanism in Chinese Literature, Film & Culture 后人类主义：华文文学、电影与文化 (Offered in Mandarin)
  
• HC3043 Chinese Ecological Thoughts and Philosophy 古今生态思想与哲学(offered in Mandarin)
• HC5010 Animals in Chinese Cultures

• HL3037 The Environment and Cultural Production
• HL3041 Global Cities in World Literature
  
• HL4013 Advanced Studies in Literature & Culture: Ecocritical Approaches to Literature

• HH3042 Climate and Society in Historical
  
• HH4006 The Green Earth: Issues in Environmental History
• HH3017 World Environmental History
• HH3018 The Environmental History of Oceans

• HG2027 Ecolinguistics: Language and the Environment
  

• HY2008 Environmental Ethics
  

• HP3202 Primate Behavioural Ecology
• HP3203 Conservation Psychology
• HP3205 Animal Behavior
  
• HP3206 Environmental Psychology

• ​HE3005 Environmental Economics
  

• HU1002 Introduction to Urban Planning
  
• HU2002 Urban Life, Design and Policy

• HS0301 Environmental Sustainability
  
• HS2023 Environmental Sociology

• CS2190 Cinema and the Environment
• CS4311 Promoting Sustainability

• ES5006 Environmental Sustainability (w.e.f. AY2023-24, Semester 1)
• ES2203 Global Environmental Politics and Governance (w.e.f. AY2023-24, Semester 1)

Students are considered to have read an equivalent pre-requisite for the above courses except for HP3202, HP3205, HP3206 and HE3005 so long as students have taken the compulsory core course HV5001.

* Pre-requisites for ES2203/ES2202 can be waived for students who have taken HV5001.

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