124182 VK BEd 08b.3: VK Cultural Studies and Language Education (2023W)

This course examines cultural representations of pollution. Focusing on, among other issues, the Anthropocene, cheap energy, health, and environmental crisis, this course explores how pollution is discussed and made visible in and through cultural texts. Via selected cinematic examples, the course investigates the relationship among toxicity, health, and environmental inequality. Zeroing in on filmic examples of air pollution, the course analyzes the aesthetics of the invisible, linking air, breath, and planetary health. In addition to air pollution, students are invited to explore other kinds of pollution and the way they are represented in cultural texts. One of the chief goals of this course is to provide examples and outline clear ways of teaching environmentalism and environmental justice through cultural texts at school.