With apologies for cross-posting


Dear supporters of the Rescue!History network,

Some current news and a request(point 3) below for how some of you might like to directly help us (and even get paid something small in return!)

1) The Rescue!History e-book, ( Mark Levene, Rob, Johnson, Penny Roberts eds.)  'History at the End of the World ? History, Climate Change and the Possibility of Closure' (Humanities E-books, Penrith),  consisting of 15 provocative 'think-pieces' about  human selves, the human past and climate change, is nearing completion and will be out in the New Year. We'll keep you posted of developments but we hope you will want to join with us in publicising and disseminating it as widely as possible. Watch this space.

2) We're still looking for blogs and publications for the Rescue!History resource page. We're expecting some more additions shortly and  have just included now, Prof Colin Richmond's 'A Life's Task', specially composed for the Rescue!History site and a great little read about the real social, economic (and hence environmental) sigificance of the Henrician Reformation. Thanks Colin. http://rescue-history-from-climate-change.org/PDFs/a_lifes_task.pdf If others of you have got pieces of your own, published or unpublished, which you'd like included on the page, please get in touch with
me or Marianne at [log in to unmask]

3) the most important bit: please read if you can!

Rescue!History has been commissioned (that sounds a bit grand, 'contracted' might be closer the mark!) to produce a model course syllabus by the HEA History Subject Centre. (Higher Education Academy, for those of you who don't know, is the outfit which supports academic teaching in the UK, the History subject centre including Archaeology and Classics).

Our schedule is from now to the end of June 2010. The brief is to produce a prototype  undergraduate syllabus  (i.e.  material for a semester course)and explanatory supporting material specifically geared to history and related disciplines. The subject  of the syllabus is (of course) the relationship between the human past and the present reality of anthropogenic climate change. And to cut to the chase, what I'm looking for is academics, teachers and also students to feed in ideas, or more exactly discrete components for this exercise. I have  a small grant to make this happen. So,
depending on ideas offered, I may be able to provide some small packets of £sd for anybody who can work them up into a coherent seminar (and or) lecture components for the syllabus.

Rather than going into depth here, may I suggest that anybody who has an interest might  get in touch with me direct?  I am, however, including below some nebulous ideas (from the HEA application: see far below ) as to the sort of isssues we might want to develop in this project. What I'm interested in, as a general rule is not heavily 'scientific' or even necessarily 'environmental' material in the strict sense of the word but rather ideas with might engage with the issue of ourselves and the biosphere; human social, economic, political, cultural and religious behaviour across time and space (quite literally from the very ancient to the present).  To help get the gist of what this might entail I also enclose details of the already up and running  12 part, collectively-formulated 'In
the Face of Humanity' course at Southampton, which (though not
history-specific) might give some clues as to possible directions. All that said, what I'm most interested in here, is running with some of YOUR ideas and where appropriate, paying you for the joy of developing them.

Thanks for your time, and best wishes to you all,

Mark

(Mark Levene)



-  Rescue!History
http://rescue-history-from-climate-change.org/indexClassic.php


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Some of the very provisional ideas which inform this proposed syllabus


'Past Actions: Present Woes: Rethinking History in the Light of
Anthropogenic Climate Change and Seeking its Assistance as a Guide to Human Survival'.
(A Model University Syllabus for History and Related Subjects)
(again entirely provisional title).

Description of project

To create a model syllabus for historians and other students of the past to engage with issues of anthropogenic climate change through the medium of history and related disciplines.  Syllabus to be developed by a small team associated with the Rescue!History network.


a. Aims and objectives

-to create a broader awareness among humanities' students of our
dependence on the biosphere
- to provide student awareness of the connect between anthropogenic climate change and the totality of  practices, economics, technologies and socio-cultural behaviour which have brought it about
- to put this into historical (and pre-historical) context
- to consider what human experience across time and place can teach us about responding to environmental and other challenges
- to offer the past as a resource for practical and ethical action in an era of acute crisis


b. Area of teaching and learning to be developed/researched
   
- the relationship between human activity and environmental impact
- whether the impact should be seen in terms of the long duree (including back into pre-history) or abrupt (near-contemporary) rupture
- the degree to which modernity and more specifically post-1970
globalisation ('the great acceleration': J. R. McNeill) is the key cause of current global warming
- examples of where society has coped or collapsed under environmental or human-made crisis (and the relationship between these elements)
- the evolution of fossil fuel dependency and its consequences as we
reach or surpass 'peak oil'
- the 'structure' of human state, society, economy and international
relations in an era of crisis, and whether such structures and their related institutions are capable of dealing with climate change and its knock-on effects
- The degree to which resilience and sustainability at local and regional levels are the product, historically and contemporaneously, of top-down policy-making or are indicative of counter-cultural or grass-roots aspects of the human condition
- The role of culture, religion and spirituality as signposts to hope and practical action in times of fear and despair
- Case histories of what can happen, for good or ill, when polities or societies 'fail', 'break down' or 'collapse'
- The scientific history of climate change analysis.

Methodology

The proposed syllabus brings together materials from a wide range of
disciplines both within and without the immediate subject area. Hence, there is no specific discipline-centred methodology. It also has to be said that much of the current knowledge on climate change is also consequent on very current data or reports.  By contrast, historical analysis of the changes being brought about remains in its infancy. This is not to repudiate the notion of methodology; rather to propose than in constructing a new  and in some respects entirely novel (even at this stage unique) syllabus there is
an element of feeling one's way towards the right content, balance and overall assessment, on the basis of available signposts and even intuitive thought. Thus, instead of seeking a discrete and predetermined frame of reference what this exercise instead proposes is to bring together researchers, teachers and students  from a variety of disciplines, both within History subject centre, and also from elsewhere (including where appropriate beyond the Humanities), to contribute to and participate in the forging of a model course on the causes and consequences of climate change but with a view not to it being  set in stone, but rather as a launching pad for teachers to develop their own lateral or alternative ways of dealing with the subject. 

Transferability

This project will produce a product (syllabus) which will have wide
application and usefulness in a variety of frameworks

For teachers
- it will provide scope for greater use of materials and information from a wide range of disciplines
- encourage them to cover a wider temporal and spatial approach to their subject
- consider their subject both more globally and more locally

For students, it will enable them to
- think with greater reference to scientific facts, methodologies and
arguments
- organise their knowledge and understanding of history in a wider and deeper context
- arm them with the ability to interrogate different state policy and
societal responses to climate change
- feel their way to appropriate, ethically-based routes to dealing with sustained crisis
- encourage them to use their learning to develop practical action on
climate change, including reduction of  their carbon emissions and greater self-sufficiency