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Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley
Collaborative Research Seminars-Stage 2, 2015-16
Call for Applications
for faculty participation in the Collaborative Research Seminar on
The Fate of Nature in the Anthropocene: The Humanities and the Environmental Turn
Collaborative Research Seminars (CRS) are designed to direct Berkeley’s unique intellectual resources toward large,
cross-disciplinary topics, to encourage collaborative work among faculty and advanced graduate students, and to
offer faculty the unique opportunity to engage in a large-scale team teaching effort at the advanced level.
The Townsend Center is accepting faculty applications for participation in the 2015-16 Collaborative Research
Seminar, The Fate of Nature in the Anthropocene: The Humanities and the Environmental Turn. The primary
conveners of the 2015-16 Collaborative Research Seminar will be Anne-Lise Francois (Comparative Literature and
English) and Carolyn Merchant (Environmental Science, Policy, and Management). The Townsend Center will
identify four faculty to participate in the CRS as “co-conveners” who will share responsibility for development of
the curriculum, facilitation of the seminar, and direction of student research in relation to the course. The seminar
will meet weekly during the spring semester 2016.
The Fate of Nature in the Anthropocene: The Humanities and the Environmental Turn
The theme of “The Fate of Nature in the Anthropocene” suggests that the earth—as we know it today—may cease
to exist in the future. Rethinking nature in the Anthropocene—the era in which human activities have had a
significant impact on the earth’s ecosystems, especially since the advent of James Watt’s steam engine in the late
1700s—has implications for reconceptualizing the very realms and interdisciplinarities of the humanities
themselves. The question of the environmental turn in the humanities lies at the heart of the Townsend Center’s
focus on cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary research in the humanities.
This Collaborative Research Seminar (CRS) has two goals: First, to develop a theoretical framework for the
environmental humanities and, second, to examine ways in which the humanities can provide an integrated
approach to the “environmental turn.” Ethicists, writers, poets, artists, and theologians have responded to issues
surrounding the effects of anthropogenic change on the environment and on peoples of different race, class, and
gender. Humanists are probing such questions as what nature was and is, what it means to be human in the Age of
the Anthropocene, and how specific environmental issues have engaged humanists. The fields of history, art
history, English, philosophy, and religious studies have made significant contributions as have individual artists,
writers, philosophers, and theologians. The seminar will integrate approaches to the environmental humanities
and investigate how new theories of ethics and justice can be made applicable to resolving large-scale, complex
environmental problems. It will investigate and problematize the complex meanings of the term Anthropocene as
shorthand for a series of ecological and social crises facing humanity in the twenty-first century and beyond.
The seminar will investigate a number of key issues for the environmental humanities, such as climate change,
energy sources, biotechnology, agricultural production, and environmental justice. In the case of climate change,
for example, there is now broad agreement among scientists that anthropogenic or human-driven inputs
exacerbate climate change and that a wide range of ways to manage its effects is possible. Bringing the
implications of global warming and potential resolutions to the American public requires the insights not only of
scientists but also of humanists. The Anthropocene calls for new and plural understandings of nature, the natureculture web, and the post-human techno-nature that may follow.
Questions to be considered include:
 What are the meanings and critiques of the term “Anthropocene,” and what constitutes “nature” under
this new designation?
 In what sense is “nature” autonomous and beyond human control?
 In the Age of the Anthropocene what is at stake for the mutual survival of humanity-nature and naturescultures?
Application Deadline: Monday, February 9, 2015 – received by 5:00 p.m.
Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley
Collaborative Research Seminars-Stage 2, 2015-16
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What is a “natural disaster,” and how are “disasters” socially constructed?
In what ways are the humanities responding to awareness of global environmental change in the
Anthropocene and how are they formulating responses to the dilemmas posed by it?
What ethical and social justice systems are being developed to resolve social-cultural dilemmas
concerning the human implications of global change?
What are the impacts of climate change, energy sources, biotechnology, agricultural production, and
environmental justice on peoples of different race, class, and gender, and how are they being addressed
through the humanities?
Conveners
Anne-Lise Francois is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature. Her teaching
and research focus on 19th-century British, American, and European (French and German)
fiction, poetry, and thought. She is the author of Open Secrets: The Literature of Uncounted
Experience (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008). Her current work focuses on the
convergence of literature and environmental studies, with a book in progress entitled, “Provident
Improvisers: Parables of Subsistence from Wordsworth to Benjamin.” She investigates areas as
diverse as contemporary food and farming politics, debates on climate change, and the
temporality of environmental violence in an effort to identify alternatives to Enlightenment
models of heroic action, productive activity, and accumulation.
Carolyn Merchant is Professor of Environmental History, Philosophy, and Ethics in the ESPM
Division of Society and Environment. Her teaching and research focus on American and European
environmental history and on comparative approaches to environmental ethics and philosophy. She is the
author of ten books, including The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (1980, 2nd
ed. 1990), Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England (1989, 2nd. ed. 2010), and
Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture (2003, 2nd ed., 2013). She is currently completing a
book on Autonomous Nature: Predictability and Control from Ancient Times to the Scientific Revolution and
working on a book entitled, Spare the Birds! George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society: History, Gender, and
Sources.
Eligibility
All ladder-rank faculty at UC Berkeley are eligible to apply.
Application Deadline
Monday, February 9, 2015 – received by 5:00 p.m.
Grant Provision
Departments whose faculty will co-teach the seminars will count participation as the equivalent of one
graduate level course. (They may do this by assigning the faculty member to a 298, 299, or other suitable
course number, according to departmental and decanal policies.)
The seminar will meet weekly during the spring 2016 semester. The seminars themselves will be team-taught
by a group of six faculty, including the two conveners. Enrollment will be open to graduate students in the
third year of study or beyond, to form a total seminar of approximately 18 participants, faculty and students
combined. Student enrollments will be apportioned to the departments of participating faculty, or to their
home departments in the case that their department is not represented among the faculty team.
Application Deadline: Monday, February 9, 2015 – received by 5:00 p.m.
Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley
Collaborative Research Seminars-Stage 2, 2015-16
Application Guidelines
Applications should include the following:
1. A completed application cover sheet with the department chair’s signature.
2. A letter of support from your department chair.
3. A letter explaining how the topic relates to your past and/or expected future teaching and research,
and what you expect to contribute to the group.
4. Updated curriculum vitae.
Submission Guidelines
The Townsend Center requires all applications to be sent electronically.
Please create one PDF document that contains all of the materials stipulated above. When you save the file,
please include your last name, first initial, and “CRS_2015-16” in the filename, e.g., Smith_J_CRS_2015-16.pdf
Send the file as an attachment in an email to [email protected].
For more information, interested faculty may contact Director of Fellowships John Paulas at
[email protected].
Application Deadline: Monday, February 9, 2015 – received by 5:00 p.m.
Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley
Collaborative Research Seminars-Stage 2, 2015-16
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH SEMINAR: STAGE 2 PARTICIPANT COVER SHEET
The Fate of Nature in the Anthropocene: The Humanities and the Environmental Turn
Name:
Department(s):
Mailing Address and Mailcode:
Email Address:
Phone:
MSO Name:
MSO Email Address:
MSO Phone:
**Department Chair Name:
**Department Chair Signature:
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Date:
Letter attached
**PLEASE NOTE: Seminar participation requires letter of approval from the
department chair.
Application Deadline: Monday, February 9, 2015 – received by 5:00 p.m.