Building Ecological Civilization

= course by David Tyfield at Lancaster University

Description

David Tyfield:

"This concerns a concerted engagement with a concept long out of favour but now increasingly prevalent in discussions – both academic and public –, namely ‘civilisation’.

‘Civilisation’ has recently resurfaced in multiple relevant sites, reflecting the zeitgeist of what is currently at stake. But ‘civilisation’ is also itself a highly charged and divisive concept, relating also to contemporary anxieties about ‘clashes of civilizations' or drives for decolonization (including of the curriculum). Moreover, while curricula tend to focus on the heights of human achievement (whether recently or historically), the long-lasting and periodically recurring ‘dark ages’ that seemingly accompany ‘civilisation’ as its flipside are systemically overlooked. This major blind spot likely exacerbates negative responses to such ‘downturns’ as and when they take place. We need a new ‘civilisational turn’ in our thinking, but this can only happen if we grasp the nettle and engage anew with this complex but crucial term.

For all these reasons, then, a rigorous overview of ‘civilisation’ – what it means and how it has been understood and defined; how it works and evidence of its own sui generis dynamics; what we may (or may not) learn about these issues by exploring the (longue durée) past; and how we may work with it towards better futures in the face of unprecedented challenges – is a crucial addition to LEC’s social science degree programmes, placing it at the cutting edge of a new programme of education for the Anthropocene.

...

Students will systematically explore the multiple different dimensions and aspects of the complex, contested but crucial concept of ‘civilisation’, in order to develop understanding of three key issues, namely:

- What is currently understood (and not) about the dynamics, preconditions and trajectories of human ‘civilisation’ over a longue durée (including into the future)?;

- How, in what ways and why may ‘civilisation’ be said to matter, both as concept and as actuality?; and thus

- What action may be taken to support and develop civilisation?

Since ‘civilisation’ is both in itself a highly complex and multi-dimensional term, and one the revival of which demands significant critical and reflexive work, students will also thereby be trained in reassessment of many fundamental concepts from geographical, environmental and social sciences that they will have learnt in their degrees thus far. "

More information

d.tyfield@lancaster.ac.uk