A New Eco-Track in MAIAS: Core Objectives
The MAIAS eco-track offers students the opportunity to specialize in the environmentally oriented study of Anglophone literatures and cultures. By gaining 30 of the program’s 120 credit points in five eco-focused modules/classes, students engage with ecological questions through an innovative interdisciplinary framework that combines inter- and transcultural studies, ecocriticism, and the Environmental Humanities.
The track explores how our understanding of environmental issues has been shaped not only by scientific knowledge but also by cultural narratives and diverse forms of representation – both factual and fictional. Drawing on the interdisciplinary perspectives of environmental literary and cultural studies, eco-track classes…
- investigate the important role that literature, film, comics, and other forms of visual culture have played in articulating, critically debating, and transforming ideas about environments and human-nonhuman relationships, thereby contributing significantly to the formation of environmental histories;
- analyze factual and fictional texts that have participated in developing key concepts such as “nature,” “culture,” and “the human,” thereby examining how their meanings vary across different knowledge systems;
- explore the multicultural and multispecies character of many societies, shaped by the influence of (conflicting) Western scientific and philosophical traditions as well as a range of non-Western and Indigenous epistemologies;
- identify the diverse ways of understanding human relationships with the more-than-human world and the ethical questions that arise from them.
By integrating ecological perspectives into the study of Anglophone cultures, the eco-track strengthens MAIAS’s focus on intercultural understanding while highlighting socio-ecological relations as a crucial dimension of cultural history and production.
- Selection of Eco-Track ClassesHide
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Eco-track classes reflect the wide spectrum of questions, perspectives, and media explored in the field of ecocriticism. They examine a diverse range of cultural forms – including literature, film, comics, and other visual media – and encourage students to engage with some of the most pressing environmental debates of our time. Topics range from conceptual questions such as the role of narrative in shaping environmental discourse to the cultural dimensions of anthropogenic climate change, the historical and social significance of energy regimes, and evolving perspectives on human–animal and human–plant relations.
Below you find a selection of classes that have been offered in the MAIAS program in the past. Some classes are offered regularly, while others point out core areas of expertise that inform new seminar topics.
Lecture classes (“Vorlesungen”)
- “The Literary and Cultural History of Nature: An Introduction to the Environmental Imagination in North America”
- “The United States as ‘Nature’s Nation’: Literature – Culture - Ecology”
Seminars (“Proseminare”)
- “Writing Water – The Contemporary American Novel and the Blue Humanities”
- “Speculative Fiction: US American Climate Change Novels and Peak Oil Novels”
- “American Ecohorror”
- “Of Humans and Other Animals: The Discourse of Species in the Contemporary North American Novel”
- “Petrofiction – Oil in the American Novel”
- “Reading the Fungal in Contemporary American Novels”
Advanced Seminars (“Hauptseminare”)
- “Engaging Cognitive Dissonance: Climate Change Fiction”
- “EcoFacts and EcoFictions: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Environmental Understanding”
- “Anthropocene Art: Literature, Film, Photography”
- “Green on Screen: Environmentalism and American Popular Cinema”
- “Social and Environmental Activism in the U.S. American Novel”
- “More-than-Human Bonds: Animals in American Fiction”
- “Postcolonial Ecocriticism”
- “Ecology and Cultural Diversity”
- “The Swamp Thing: Comics, Plants, Humans”
- “Mapping Environmental Riskscapes in the Contemporary U.S. American Novel”
- “Anthropocene Spaces: Literary Cartographies in the Contemporary American Novel”
- “Globalism, Eco-collapse, and the (Post-)Human: Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and David Brin’s Earth”
- “Arboreal Encounters: Richard Power’s The Overstory”
- “Recent Developments in Ecocriticism”
- “The Literary and Cultural History of Nature: An Introduction to the Environmental Imagination in North America”
The modules
MAIAS students who choose the eco-track are required to select classes with an ecocritical or environmental humanities focus in the following five modules:
Module area A: A 2 eco; A 4 eco
Module area C: C 1 eco; C 3 eco
Module area D: D 1 eco
Students in the eco-track may also pursue thesis projects on topics within the field of ecocriticism.
Completion of the eco-track will be indicated on the degree certificate as “Area of Specialization: Literature, Culture, and the Environment.”
Professional and academic relevance
Students who choose the eco-track gain analytical, intercultural, and communication skills that are increasingly valuable in fields addressing environmental challenges. Their training in environmental humanities and literary and cultural analysis prepares them for careers in areas such as environmental communication, publishing and journalism, in cultural institutions, NGOs, and public policy. Graduates may work in organizations focused on sustainability, environmental education, or cultural mediation, where the ability to interpret complex environmental issues across scientific, cultural, and social contexts is essential. The eco-track also provides a strong foundation for further academic research in environmental humanities, ecocriticism, and related interdisciplinary fields.