Friends of the Earth Birmingham Action Briefing Aug 98/Sep 98

MA in Ecocritical Studies

Dear Editor,

MA in Ecocritical Studies, School of English, UCE

I am writing to alert you to a new MA programme which may be of interest to your readers: from October 1998 we will be running an expanded PG Dip/MA programme which includes a pathway for students to graduate with an MA in Ecocritical Studies. I hope to see many other such courses in the UK in the near future; however, this will be the first MA of its kind in English Studies in a British University.

As you will know, Higher Education has been slow to respond to environmental issues. The Toyne Report- Environmental Responsibility: An Agenda for Further and Higher Education (HMSO, 1993)- called for a radical ‘greening’ of HE which hasn’t really happened. English, as a discipline, has been particularly poor in this regard. However a number of encouraging initiatives are now in motion.

Now that the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) has panels affiliated to the Modern Languages Association (MLA), ecocriticism in the US has clearly ‘arrived’ as a mainstream field in English studies. The progress on this side of the Atlantic has been slower, but the publication at the beginning of 1998 of the first volume of ecocriticism in Britain marks the consolidation of literature and environment as a scholarly field of study. (ASLE UK was formed in July 1998)

Of course, the key aspect of this development is how Universities manage to collaborate with the green movement more broadly. I have the sense that we need to encourage those involved in green campaigning organizatrions to move in on the institutions, as it were, as part of a two-way process that might help to make education more resposive to the real issues which face us.

I am hoping that you will deem our new MA worthy of some editorial space in your publication (yep- that’s why it’s here! -Ed) Clearly your membership will include the kind of people I am hoping to reach (and to learn from): individuals who may have graduated some years ago, perhaps, but who have never found a postgraduate course which speaks to their concerns.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Dominic Head Reader
School of English
UCE Birmingham

Dominic has sent me a flyer for this course. Essentially the course runs from October 1998. For the PG Dip, students will take core modules in literary criticism and research methods, together with two from the following three modules in literature and environment: Green Reading/Green Writing; Ecocriticism and Postmodernity; Case Study in Literature and Environment. For more information please contact The School Office: School of English, Baker Building, University of Central England, Perry Barr, Birmingham, B42 2SU. Tel: 0121 331 5540/6691. Fax: 0121 331 6692. Good luck to UCE in this endeavour and to any of you who may take up the opportunity of furthering your education. Please let us know how you get on! -Ed