How can we think with air? Of all the elements and substances on which humans and other species depend, air has often been the most overlooked.
But in the face of climate change, airborne pandemics, urban pollution, and debates about environmental justice and human rights and access to it have drawn new attention in a range of disciplines and practices, from history and anthropology, to literature, art and architecture.
For those interested in pollution, urbanism, health, and human rights, this course will allow you to think deeply about air in order to tackle a growing environmental health crisis. It encourages deep thinking about the connection between individual and generational experiences of climate change, and the links between humans and other species in our fragile shared atmosphere.
This course gives you the opportunity to:
- Learn about the history of air science, and different cultural attitudes to air
- Reflect on the metaphoric status of air and how it relates to lived air
- Gain critical resources for articulating rights to clean air
- Recognise some of the ethical conflicts around shared air
- Reflect on the sensory experience of air as smell and tactility
- Engage with contemporary aesthetic theories of atmosphere
- Evaluate attempts to enshrine a human right to clean air
