Cultures, Catastrophe and Climate

Climate change and natural disasters proliferate our modern media, but they are nothing new for human populations. This course will take you on a journey around the world, through many different time periods to look at the ways in which individuals and societies have responded to climate changes and catastrophic environmental events. We will explore evidence from ancient and modern texts, oral histories, art and the archaeological record along with a range of scientific evidence about past environments, focusing in particular on tree-ring and other high resolution archives. We will consider the role of cultural expression in shaping the way societies explain, manage and mitigate for catastrophic change, how the cultural record can be used to inform environmental reconstructions and how climatic and geological “catastrophe” can seed an artistic and poetic renaissance.