Studying at York
Elemental Histories: Early Modern Environments - HIS00175I
- Department: History
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: I
- Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
Module summary
From smokey cities to stagnant swamps and from terrifying mountains to the depths of mines, in this module we explore the environmental history of the early modern period (c.1500-1800). Each week we will explore a different facet of interaction with the material world, ranging from the macro-scale of climate to the curation of comfort at home. Along the way we will examine how early moderns across the globe framed their experience of the environment: from biblical apocalypse to scientific experimentation and from medical theories to landscape painting and aesthetics. We will examine the different ways in which resources were extracted from the environment and the impact of urbanization, agriculture, and colonial expansion. From mines in present-day Bolivia to the damp Dutch polders and from Vesuvius’ volcanic eruptions to China’s fir forests, we will examine the processes of environmental change taking place across the globe.
Each end of the period covered in this module is characterised by crises: from the great droughts that afflicted the Ottoman empire in the 1590s and the plagues that criss-crossed Europe to the Kanto flood of 1742 and Lisbon’s 1755 earthquake. The period was not short of environmental disasters and the module will therefore examine moments when floods, earthquakes, and pestilence all threatened life and limb. Finally, we will ask what studying early modern environmental history can contribute to our understanding of the ecological disaster happening around us in the present. If the ‘modern’ period is one that we might usefully describe as the ‘anthropocene’, the geological age in which human activity has become the dominant influence on the climate and environment, then to what extent did the ‘early modern’ period witness the beginning of that epoch?
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Semester 2 2024-25 |
Module aims
The aims of this module are:
- To provide students with the opportunity to study particular historical topics in depth
- To develop students’ ability to examine a topic from a range of perspectives and to strengthen their ability to work critically and reflectively with secondary and primary material
Module learning outcomes
Students who complete this module successfully will:
- Have acquired a deep knowledge of the specific topic studied
- Have developed their ability to use and synthesise a range of primary and secondary sources
- Be able to evaluate the arguments that historians have made about the topic studied
- Have developed their ability to study independently through seminar-based teaching
Module content
Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1. Students will then attend a 1-hour plenary/lecture and a 2-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of semester 1. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW) during which there are no seminars. Students prepare for and participate in eight 1-hour plenaries/lectures and eight 2-hour seminars in all.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
- What is ‘Early Modern’ Environmental History?
- Seasons and Seasoning: Climate Change
- Birds and Bees: Air
- After the Flood: Water
- Into the Woods: Forests
- Sulphuric Depths: Earth
- Beauty and Terror: Mountains
- Big Smoke: Cities
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Special assessment rules
None
Additional assessment information
For formative assessment, students will complete a referenced 1200 to 1500-word essay relating to the themes and issues of the module. This will be submitted in either the Week 5 or Week 9 RAW week (on the day of the weekly seminar).
For summative assessment, students will complete an Assessed Essay (2000 words, footnoted). This will comprise 100% of the overall module mark.
Summative assessments will be due in the assessment period.
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Module feedback
Following their formative assessment task, students will typically receive written feedback that will include comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission.
Work will be returned to students in their seminars and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their formative work during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
Indicative reading
For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:
- Lydia Barnett, After the Blood: Imagining the Global Environment in Early Modern Europe (Baltimore: John Hopkin’s University Press, 2019).
- Martin Knoll and Reinhold Reith (eds.), An Environmental History of the Early Modern Period: Experiments and Perspectives (Berlin: LIT Verlang, 2014).
- Richard H. Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).