English Studies and Climate Change
English studies and climate change is a pairing that reflects one of the most urgent intellectual challenges of our time: understanding not just the science of a warming planet but the cultural, ideological and literary dimensions of how human beings relate to the natural world and to the ecological crisis they have helped to create. English studies asks how language and literature shape our understanding of the world, how texts encode ideological assumptions, and how reading and writing are always situated in specific historical and environmental contexts. Climate change as a field of study brings the science and politics of environmental crisis into dialogue with those humanistic questions.
This three-year full-time degree at Aberystwyth University provides a thorough and critical understanding of the ideological debates that shape the ways we read and write, challenging your perceptions of the places we read and write about and asking who gets to tell stories about the environment and from what perspectives. You will engage with ecocriticism, environmental writing, climate fiction, the politics of representation and the history of human relationships with the natural world, alongside the foundational skills of literary analysis, argumentation and research that English studies demands. The combination encourages you to bring humanistic depth to questions that are too important to leave to scientists and policymakers alone.
Graduates are well placed for careers in environmental journalism, communications, sustainability organisations, public engagement, education, policy research and the wide range of roles that require both clear writing and genuine engagement with environmental questions. The critical thinking and communication skills the degree develops are broadly applicable. Further study in environmental humanities, ecocriticism, creative writing with an ecological focus, or environmental policy is a natural route for graduates who wish to develop specialist expertise.