ENVIRONMENTS AND SOCIETIES OF THE ISLAMICATE COUNTRIES

The course “Environments and Societies of the Islamicate Countries” is part of the Master’s Degree Programme in Environmental Humanities, and contributes to the learning outcomes of the CdS in the humanities. It studies the historical development of human-environment relations in Islamicate countries by looking a key moments the history of these societies and their reflection on the natural world. We will look at how the diverse and changing environments of the Islamicate countries shaped and were shaped by human activity, and sparkled original reflections on nature and the place of humans within it.

The aim of the course is to provide students with the means necessary to discuss a broad range of environmental topics in the history of Islamicate thought and societies. This entails both the methodological tools to conduct further independent research, a familiarity with the state of the art in the field, and knowledge of the key themes related to the environments addressed in the course.

This is an elective course offered to students enrolled in the Master Degree in the Environmental Humanities and it will be taught in English. No prior background in the subject is required.

After the some introductory remarks, in each lecture we will discuss a kind of environment (e.g. oasis, mountains, marshes) or environmental event (e.g. earthquakes, drought, epidemics) through the lens of specific instances of human-environment relations (e.g. Central Asian oasis cities, the irrigated landscape in the historical regions of Iraq) and key intellectual turns in human reflection on the environment (e.g. the role of mountains in the ecosystem, natural philosophy of the sea).

Students may choose one of the following readings. The chosen reading will be the starting point of the final exam.
John R. McNeill. Mountains of the Mediterranean: an environmental history. Cambridge University Press (1992)
Alan Mikhail, ed. Water on Sand: Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa. Oxford University Press (2012)
Alan Mikhail. Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: an Environmental History. Cambridge University Press (2011)
Foltz, R. Islam and ecology: A bestowed trust. Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School (2003)
Anna M. Gade, Muslim Environmentalisms: Religious and Social Foundations. Columbia University Press (2019)
Sayyed Hossein Nasr. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. State University of NY Press (1993)
Stephen McPhilips, Paul D. Wordsworth. Landscapes of the Islamic World: Archaeology, History, and Ethnography. University of Pennsylvania Press (2016)

The final exam will be a 20-30 min. discussion about the subjects of the course, starting from your chosen reading.

Conventional classroom lectures, class discussions

English

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Natural capital and environmental quality" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development