Environmental Literature, Religion and Philosophy

The ES track in Environmental Literature, Religion, and Philosophy begins with the premise that our relationship to nature and the environment is mediated through the textual, visual, and aural languages that we have for representing that relationship. How we know nature and the material world, in other words, comes to us through the cultural vocabularies that we have developed across different times, spaces, and peoples. Students who choose to follow an ELRP track combine the core ES curriculum with advanced coursework in the fields of literature, religion, art, history, and/or philosophy.

New College students in the past have conducted tutorials, Independent Study Projects (ISPs), and senior theses on such topics as the role of nature in modernist poetry, the cultural history of western food, the relationship between nature and community in Judaism and Christianity, and the phenomenology of nature-centered learning.

Requirements
Students following a track in Environmental Literature, Religion, and Philosophy must complete the core Environmental Studies curriculum required of all ES students AND a minimum of five additional courses or activities that are determined in consultation with a faculty advisor.

Students are encouraged to meet with their potential advisor by the end of their second year to ascertain if their anticipated advisor is available to sponsor an Environmental Studies thesis and to consult about course/activity expectations beyond the core curriculum.

Faculty
Faculty resources and interests at New College span a number of topics that address how we have represented and imagined our relationship to the environment over the course of history. Recent courses offered by faculty have included Judaism and Ecology, Environmental Ethics, Nature and Poetry, and Environmental History. While no single instructor is responsible for the track in Environmental Literature, Religion, and Philosophy, students desiring to pursue this track are encouraged to talk with possible advisors by the end of their second year. The faculty listed below are explicitly interested in the study of the environment, although other faculty from the Humanities are also suitable as potential advisors.

Susan Marks (Religion): Dr. Marks, a specialist in Judaic Studies, teaches on the development of Jewish and Early Christian ideas concerning nature, community, creation, and justice. Students interested in working on an ES degree with Dr. Marks should expect to take coursework in Religion prior to the end of their second year and to have taken at least one course offered by Dr. Marks.

Typically, Dr. Marks expects students to take advanced coursework, ISPs, or tutorials in various aspects of religion, religious history and religious intersections with environmental concerns to complete their degree in Environmental Studies.

Robert Zamsky (Literature): Dr. Zamsky, a specialist in modernist and post-modernist poetry, deals in the relationships among literature, aurality, and the natural environment. Students interested in working with Dr. Zamsky should expect to take course work in Literature prior to the end of their second year and to have worked with Dr. Zamsky in at least one class by that point.

Typically, Dr. Zamsky expects students, at a minimum, to take advanced coursework, ISPs, or tutorials in literature and the environment to complete their degree in Environmental Studies.

Aron Edidin (Philosophy): Dr. Edidin, a specialist in analytic philosophy, teaches on topics of interests to ES students, including the philosophy of science and environmental ethics. Students interested in working with Dr. Edidin should expect to take course work in Philosophy prior to the end of their second year and to have worked with Dr. Edidin in at least one class by that point.

Environmental Studies
New College of Florida
CGR 200
5800 Bay Shore Road
Sarasota Florida 34243

Phone: (941)487-4365
Fax: (941)487-4538
environmentalstudies@ncf.edu