IEP 426: Contested Natures

AWAYMAVE - The Distance Mode of MA in Values and the Environment at Lancaster University

Assessment

Details of assessment

The assessment of the course will consist of one long research essay of 5,000 words (max). This paper will be submitted by 18 July 2005. Any other essay topic must be appropriately related to the central themes and aims of the module, and will need to be approved by the course tutor. The paper will need to be in standard discursive essay form, with a bibliography and a pattern of argument that is much like the papers you will find in the readings for the module. The criteria for marking MA essays in IEPPP are set out here.

If you would like feedback on an essay plan please send it to me in plenty of time for you to make use of the comments.

I hope that the web contributions you make will be the starting point or dry runs of material for essays and would certainly encourage you to use them in this way. If you would like to submit a portfolio of web contributions and a 3,500 word essay please do so. Further advice on portfolios can be found on the distance learners home page under assessment.

Please note there is a penalty of 5 marks for work that is seriously overlength (seriously overlength is defined as more than 10% longer than the maximum or guidline length).

Essay titles

1. In what ways does nature and ‘the environment’ become embodied in everyday life practices? What might be the implications for a revised politics of the environment?
2. What were the implications of treating ‘nature’ as ‘other’ and how was this embedded in the modernist project?
3. What is the role of the senses in our appreciation of nature? In what ways can the sense of vision be seen to be hegemonic?
4. Explore the significance of the countryside in the articulation of English national identity and discuss its on-going relevance in relation to ‘New Britain’.
5. Does ‘nature’ exist prior to and separate from culture or is culture necessary to rescue nature? Discuss.
6. Outline how a historical understanding of nature can inform a contemporary environmental debate.
7. In what ways is ‘nature’ an important category in relation to biotechnology? Discuss making use of empirical research.