At UEA I’ve been heavily involved in developing our relatively new BA Geography degree. I’m now the Course Director of that programme, and teach on a wide range of modules across our geography and environmental social science offerings, at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
I run a 3rd-year undergraduate module called ‘New Geographies of the Anthropocene’, which introduces students to the historical, political and cultural geographies of the so-called ‘age of humans’. In designing this module I tried to come up with ways for students to take ownership of their learning about the Anthropocene, and to forge their own paths through its intellectual thickets. To that end, each year we hold a collaborative ‘Museum of the Anthropocene’, in which students exhibit an object which they think is particularly eloquent of the Anthropocene’s human (and inhuman) geographies. So far, museum exhibits have included everything from tea, coffee, cotton, a miner’s lamp and a banknote to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, LS Lowry’s Industrial Landscape, a Christmas tree and a Bible. This year (autumn 2020), to comply with coronavirus restrictions, the exhibition will likely be held online, which is something I’ve been thinking of trying anyway. I’ll post more details as they become available.
Martin Mahony 