Environmental Humanities 
Minors a.y. 2023/2024

What is a Minor

A Minor is a complementary programme to a Bachelor’s Degree which allows you to broaden your main study field by developing cross-cutting skills that are useful both for your further education and for your career.

A Minor is composed of three modules of 6 ECTS each. By passing the three Minor exams you will get a certification and an Open Badge.

Contacts, FAQs

Objectives and contents

The Minor aims to introduce students of every Bachelor’s Degree Programme to a new academic area that addresses the urgent planetary environmental crisis from an interdisciplinary perspective. EH, which have been studied for about a decade in Anglo-Saxon countries, are a broad and rapidly growing field of study based on a dialogue and mutual exchange among the humanities, social sciences and environmental sciences. The underlying project is to shed light on the cultural dimensions of the ecological crisis, interpreting them from both a critical and creative perspective. The dialogue among literature, history, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, cinema, the arts, social sciences and natural sciences produces knowledge that not only analyses the ways in which the environment has been conceived in relation to humanity, but also promotes a different, more inclusive, critical and sustainable culture. Ca' Foscari offers the first Master's Degree in EH in Italy and has a dedicated research centre, so it provides students who choose this Minor further intellectual stimulation and opportunities.

The courses, which do not require any specific core competence other than that of any Bachelor’s Degree Programme, are structured as follows.

  1. The first module offers a general introduction to the subject, its themes, keywords, key scholars, and related academic and cultural debates. Alongside this overview, students will be offered individual lectures by guest lecturers who will, from time to time, introduce specific perspectives on different aspects and topics of Environmental Humanities.
  2. The second module is historical and will focus on two crucial centuries, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which are those coinciding with the new era of the Anthropocene, in which human beings have become a factor capable of drastically changing the climate and the entire biosphere. The historical analysis focuses on the necessary interaction between technical progress and social impact, showing how science is not an autonomous domain but an integral part of the dynamics of society.
  3. The third module is philosophical and focuses on environmental aesthetics, analysing the basic categories of aesthetics and their relationship to the perception of nature and the multiple functions of art in conceptualising, experiencing and reconfiguring natural phenomena.

Language

This Minor is taught in Italian.

Coordinator

Professor Shaul Bassi

Modules of the Minor

Academic year 2023/2024

Recipients and credits recognition

The Minor is offered free of charge to Ca’ Foscari undergraduate and postgraduate students. It is possible to enrol also as an external user.

  • If you are an undergraduate student at Ca’ Foscari, this Minor can be recognised in the elective course section of your Bachelor’s Degree. Final marks will not affect the average of your degree.
  • If you are a postgraduate student at Ca’ Foscari, the Minor cannot be recognised in the elective course section of your Master's Degree Programme.

Enrolment, attendance and exams

The enrolment procedure will be available from 4 September to 3 November 2023. There is not a maximum number of participants.

In order to attend the three modules, sign up and take the exams, you must enrol in the Minor programme.
Enrolment lasts one year. It is mandatory to attend the three modules in the same year and take the exams in the four exam sessions available. You will not be allowed to complete the Minor programme the following year.

By passing the three Minor exams you will get a certification from your personal area and an Open Badge.
If you fail one or more exams in your Minor, you will still be entitled to receive the certification for the exams you passed, but the credits of the Minor will not be recognised in the elective course section of your Bachelor’s Degree programme.

Withdrawing from Minor is possible: filling the withdrawal form, you must attach the receipt of the online payment of the duty stamp (16 euros). You can find the withdrawal form within the FAQs. Please, be aware that enrolling again after the withdrawal will be at your expense.

The Minor is offered free of charge to Ca’ Foscari undergraduate students. Before enrolling you must have finalised your enrolment in your Degree Programme, otherwise you will be charged a 496 euros fee (480 euros + 16 euros duty stamp).

External users, not enrolled to Ca’ Foscari undergraduate nor postgraduate programmes, can enrol in the Minor with a charge of 496 euros (480 euros + 16 euros duty stamp).

If you are a student at another university, the fee is reduced to 336 euros (320 euros + 16 euros duty stamp). At the end of the enrolment process, stop before you make the payment and click on Request for assistance in order to get in touch with the Enrolment unit. Ca’ Foscari staff will contact you to explain how to get the reduction on the enrolment fee.