Environmental Humanities (Minor)

Department Website

Program Description

In the past decade, scholarship in the humanities has directed heightened attention to the relationships between cultural life (including the arts and literature) and the increasingly precarious biological and geophysical systems of our planet. The field of environmental humanities brings the methods of humanistic research and critical analysis to bear on such topics as energy consumption and extraction; fossil-fueled power regimes; species extinction; habitat degradation; endangerment of oceans, rivers, and marine life; and the use of captive animals for food and research. More broadly, this field excavates the histories and speculates on the futures of a climate-changed world. Although it is sponsored by the Department of Environmental Studies (in the Faculty of Arts and Science), the environmental humanities minor is a cross-departmental and cross-disciplinary initiative that integrates the curricular offerings of the home department with those of FAS humanities departments, Gallatin, Steinhardt, Tisch, Tandon, and NYU Global sites.

Students who declare the minor are paired with a faculty adviser and are given access to extensive job, internship, and career resources and events, both during their time at NYU and after graduation.

Minor Declaration and Advisement

To schedule an advising appointment and/or to declare a minor in environmental humanities, please contact environmental.humanities.advising@nyu.edu.

See Environmental Humanities Minor for other scheduling and declaration options.