Higher Education Academy
Questionnaire on Sustainability Orientation of Subject Centres:
Response of the English Subject Centre
Introduction
This questionnaire was administered in April 2005 to a number of Subject
Centres participating in a Higher Education Academy project on Education for
Sustainable Development (ESD). The results from this questionnaire will
contribute directly to two areas of research being carried out for the Higher
Education Academy : (1) Embedding Education for Sustainable Development
(ESD)
into
Higher
Education
(research
team:
Gerald
Dawe
(GeraldDawe@aol.com
tel.
01432
343262),
Dr
Rolf
Jucker
(R.Jucker@swansea.ac.uk) and Professor Stephen Martin) and (2) Individual
Subject Centre ESD Projects.
This response was prepared on behalf of the English Subject Centre by Dr
Greg Garrard and Dr Richard Kerridge of Bath Spa University College on
the 6th May 2005.
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DEFINING SUSTAINABILITY FOR YOUR SUBJECT CENTRE
1. Which definition of sustainable development (SD) is favoured by, or
viewed to be most appropriate to, your Subject Centre?
Most of categories listed here do not fit easily into the vocabulary of a Humanities
subject such as English. They are mainly derived from the environmental and
social and political sciences. We have applied them to English as far as possible,
sometimes by widening their definition.
We regard model 8 as most relevant because it stresses the importance of
‘equity’ and ‘empowerment’ as well as ‘equipment’ and ‘economy’. Ecocriticism
has tended to be seen as a means of linking literature and ‘the earth’, but it also
engages with questions of equity and empowerment insofar as it overlaps with
longstanding political orientations in literary study such as feminism, Marxism
and postcolonial studies. Ecofeminists and environmental justice advocates
argue that questions of social equity and empowerment are intrinsically linked
with environmental sustainability. At the same time, however, some feminists are
critical of what they see as the repressive potential of the linkage of femininity
and nature in ecofeminism. Moreover, some ecocritics who are sympathetic to
‘deep ecology’ would question the notion that ‘development’ (in the sense of
Western industrial development) should be linked to sustainability at all.
In terms of SD parameters (point 12 Briefing Paper), we might assess their
relevance as follows:
 Diversity. English has had an increasing commitment to human
diversity since the ‘theoretical revolution’ of the 1970s, especially in he
context of postcolonial studies. Biodiversity in the scientific sense is not
thought relevant to the subject, although pastoral poetry has a long
history of engagement with and celebration of the natural world. As the
biologist Julian Huxley observed in his introduction to the UK edition of
Rachel Carson’s 1964 environmentalist classic Silent Spring, the overuse of persistent agricultural pesticides risked ‘losing half the subjectmatter of English poetry’ by endangering songbird populations.
 Intergenerational justice. Such issues might be raised in the context of
genre studies modules such as utopian or science fiction, but the
general orientation of the subject is towards the past and present.
 Uncertainty and precaution. While most English students would assert
a commitment to uncertainty, they would most likely think of it in terms
of the subjectivity of literary interpretation rather than scientific
uncertainty. Moreover, ecocritics might want to draw attention to the
ways in which scientific uncertainty may be used against the interests
of sustainable development, e.g. in relation to climate change. The
concept of precaution is not seen as relevant to the subject.
 Social justice. English maintains a strong, though of necessity largely
abstract, commitment to social justice (see ‘diversity’ above). However,
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it is worth mentioning that, in the British critical tradition, such a
commitment has often been seen as inimical to an interest in ‘nature’.
Marxists and feminists have criticised the ideological ‘naturalisation’ of
repressive social orders (e.g. the ‘natural’ inevitability and desirability
of patriarchy), and drawn attention to the historical association of some
forms of proto-environmentalism and political conservatism.
Interdependence. Whilst ecocritics would see interdependence as the
central quality that environmentally conscious literature has to
recognise, this concept is not seen as relevant in the subject as a
whole.
Citizenship and stewardship. These concepts are not seen as directly
relevant to the subject, although the dedication of English to the idea of
independent critical thinking, and to the exchange and critical
discussion of ideas in the public space of the seminar or workshop,
has in it an implicit concept of citizenship and its responsibilities.
Efficiency and sufficiency. While literature has long been posited as a
source of alternative values in a wasteful, materialistic mass / popular
culture, such alleged autonomy has been sharply challenged by, for
example, cultural materialist critics who note the interdependence of
so-called ‘high’ culture and a consumer economy. Moreover, until the
advent of ecocriticism, such counter-cultural values were seldom
expressed in specifically ecological terms.
Deceleration. While most English lecturers would hope to imbue their
students with a love of slow, close and attentive reading, the demands
of students' social and working lives outside the academy, class sizes,
the ‘employability’ agenda and the impact of modularisation on the
pace of reading and assessment powerfully militate against such
deceleration. On the other hand, sensitive use of VLE materials,
careful consideration of assessment criteria and independent learning
work may help to foster a ‘slow reading’ approach.
Small is beautiful. Only the Japanese haiku conforms to this rubric in
English.
2. What is the relevance of SD within the disciplinary areas managed by
your Subject Centre?
The branch of this disciplinary area that has a mission to connect literary criticism
with the principle of sustainable development is ecocriticism, a movement in
literary criticism that emerged in the early 1990s. Ecocriticism is literary and
cultural criticism from an environmentalist viewpoint: an application of literary
criticism resembling feminist criticism and postcolonial criticism. The aims and
activities of ecocriticism are the following:

Particular texts are evaluated in terms of their environmentally harmful
or helpful implications. What sort of assumptions about the natural
world and the right way to treat it, about consumerism and its forms of
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


desire and about the human relation to place, for example, are to be
found in literary and other texts? How should our knowledge of
environmental crisis change our reading and evaluation of certain
texts? Ecocritical analysis has been applied to a wide range of texts,
from the works of Milton, Wordsworth, Hardy, Lawrence and Virginia
Woolf to films such as The Silence of the Lambs and Deliverance and
television wildlife documentaries. Many novels and poems published
since the beginnings of the contemporary environmental movement
have received ecocritical interpretation (Plath, Hughes, Heaney,
Prynne, Les A. Murray, John Fowles, John Berger, Margaret Atwood,
Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, J.M. Coetzee, Julia Leigh etc). Nonfiction nature writing in the US tradition (Thoreau, Edward Abbey,
Annie Dillard, Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams etc) and the British
tradition (Gilbert White, Richard Jefferies, Edward Thomas, Richard
Mabey) has been given extensive ecocritical discussion.
Ecocritics analyse the history of concepts such as ‘nature’, ‘human’,
‘animal’, ‘rationality’ and ‘civilisation’, in an attempt to understand the
cultural developments that have led to the present global ecological
crisis. Literary, artistic and philosophical movements such as
Romanticism and Modernism, and genres such as Pastoral are studied
for the proto-ecological or anti-ecological ideas to be found in them.
New literary significances are identified that ‘nature’, or certain features
of landscape, for example, will have in the light of the current
ecological crisis. Some traditional significances – nature as eternal
compared with the transience of human works, for example – are
identified as needing to change. A new environmentalist aesthetic is
proposed, for the evaluation of contemporary and historical texts.
Teaching literature is partly a matter of passing on a tradition.
Ecocriticism, like feminism, demands a revaluation of some texts and
conventions in that tradition.
Non-fiction nature writing, previously seen by most types of literary
critic as a minor genre of literature, is repositioned as a major genre,
deserving the same sort of critical attention as the novel, poetry and
drama.
Comparative studies are made between the literature of indigenous,
non-industrial cultures, the literature of industrial and colonial cultures
and the literature of postcolonial cultures, to evaluate all of these in
ecocritical terms and produce a new ecocritical literary canon.
Scientific concepts relevant to sustainability, such as ‘ecosystem’, and
philosophical concepts such as ‘anthropocentrism’ and ‘ecocentrism’,
are defined for students and brought into the vocabulary of literary
criticism. Habitual assumptions in literary discourse – about the
‘balance’ or ‘harmony’ of nature, for example - are questioned in the
light of the scientific concepts.
The emphasis in many types of literary criticism on the text as a selfcontained signifying system is counteracted by an insistence on
4
attention to the relationship between the text and the world, the latter
being understood in ecological terms. Landscape in literature, for
example, should not be regarded only as setting for the actions of
human characters, or as symbolising their emotions or fates. It should
also be there for its own sake, and as a set of ecological relations
represented with accuracy. What has happened to Hardy’s ‘Egdon
Heath’ since The Return of the Native was written makes a difference,
for ecocritics, to the way we read the novel now.
 In Creative Writing (normally included in English for Subject Centre,
AHRC, QAA and RAE purposes), creative work dealing with
environmental topics is taught and encouraged. Modules in non-fiction
nature writing are introduced. Novelists, poets, scriptwriters, travel
writers and lifewriters are asked to reflect upon the environmental
implications of their work, and encouraged to make environmentalism
one of its concerns.
In all these aspects, ecocriticism is a new, stimulating and challenging
presence in English studies.
PEDAGOGY AND RESOURCES
3. How is ESD delivered within your SC area?
ESD is delivered by traditional means (seminars, lectures and tutorials) for the
most part, although there is scope for development of at least two other
approaches:
 IT-based approaches. Basic concepts in sustainability might easily be
communicated through interactive web-based resources capable of
negotiating between the different discourses of academic subjects (see
18).
 Field trips. We are currently developing field trips at BSUC for our
‘Writing and Environmental Crisis’ module that will encourage critical
analysis of landscapes and environments at the boundary of culture
and nature, e.g. zoo, wildfowl refuge, Eden Project, country walk.
Considerable work on such approaches has been undertaken in the
USA and published in the journal ISLE (see 9).
Note: This question specifically refers to the pedagogical approaches used to deliver SD in your
SC area. Is it delivered like any other topic (through traditional means of delivery in lectures,
seminars and tutorials)? Or are other approaches used? Is the focus of delivery on what or on
how or on where or on a combination of the three? For some initial, but by no means exhaustive,
context and ideas, please refer to the second part of the appended document ‘SDESD Briefing
Notes’
4. Can you provide example(s) of successful ESD models operating within
your Subject Centre disciplines within UK universities or HEIs?
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Course Tutor
Course
University or HEI Notes
Greg Garrard / ‘Writing
and Bath
Spa
Richard Kerridge
Environmental
University College
Crisis’
Greg Garrard
‘Reading Texts’
Ditto
The inclusion of
‘Ecocriticism’ in
this core module
has significantly
boosted the profile
of ESD in the
School.
Erica Fudge
‘Representing
Middlesex
Animals
in University
Fiction: 1877 to
the Present’
Elspeth Graham / ‘Introduction
to Liverpool
John This and the
Brian Gibbons
Literature
and Moores
following module
Environment’
deal directly with
environmentalism
and attitudes to
the natural world.
Ditto
‘Land
and Ditto
Animals’
Brian Gibbons
‘Witchcraft
and Ditto
This and the
Magic’
following module
include incidental
analysis of
attitudes to the
natural world.
Ditto
‘Writing
Ditto
Revolutions’
Nick Groom
‘Englishness’
University
of Section on
Bristol
Romantic
Ecology.
David Wragg
‘Environmental
University College
Modernity’
Northampton
Gill Davis / John ‘Literature and the Edge Hill College Environmentalism,
Simons
Environment’
of
Higher ecocriticism,
Education
animal rights.
Philip Smallwood / ‘Literature
and University
of Covers
David Roberts
Environment’
Central England
representations of
environmental
issues, 1500present.
Hugh Dunkerley
Re-inventing
University College Ecocritical studies
Nature:
Chichester
of poetry.
6
Contemporary
Poetry and the
Environment
We have received completed questionnaires from only 9 HEIs thus far, although
it might be supposed that most or all of those offering ESD-related modules
would have responded. Only one HEI wrote back to say that they had no
ecocriticism modules. On the assumption that non-responding HEIs do not have
explicitly-identified ESD provision, we can say that it is currently very sparse
indeed in terms of ecocriticism and environmental literature modules. However, it
is possible that a much larger number of tutors and courses make some limited
reference to ecocritical ideas, especially now that there are introductory texts
available in the UK that are suitable for undergraduate use (most importantly the
‘Ecocriticism’ section in Peter Barry’s Beginning Theory 2nd edn.).
5. Please provide a catalogue of available resources within your SC on SD
/ ESD
The ASLE website contains regularly updated information about a wide range of
activities, including a full bibliography, a directory of courses, a mentoring
scheme for postgraduate students and a lively email discussion list. The content
is mainly US, but the site has links to all the other branches. Web address:
www.asle.umn.edu
The following is a short bibliography:
Armbruster, Karla and Wallace, Kathleen Beyond Nature Writing (London:
University of Virginia P 2001)
Bate, Jonathan Romantic Ecology (London: Routledge 1991)
Bate, Jonathan The Song of the Earth (London: Picador 2000)
Bennett, Michael (ed) The Nature of Cities: Ecocriticism and Urban Environments
(Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona 1999)
Buell, Lawrence The Environmental Imagination (London: Harvard Belknap
1995)
Buell, Lawrence Writing for an Endangered World (London: Harvard Belknap
2000)
Coupe, Laurence (ed) The Green Studies Reader (London: Routledge 2000)
Cronon, William (ed) Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature
(London: Norton 1996)
Egan, Gabriel Green Shakespeare: from Ecopoltics to Ecocriticism (London:
Routledge 2005 forthcoming)
Garrard, Greg Ecocriticism (London: Routledge 2004)
Glotfelty, Cheryll and Fromm, Harold The Ecocriticism Reader (London:
University of Georgia P 1996)
Kerridge, Richard and Sammells, Neil Writing the Environment (London: Zed
Books 1998)
Kerridge, Richard Beginning Ecocriticism (Manchester: Manchester UP
forthcoming)
7
Wilson, Alexander The Culture of Nature (Oxford: Blackwell 1992)
PRACTICAL CONTEXTS FOR TUTORS
This section is intended to identify the milieu within which tutors operate, and
possible factors encouraging/inhibiting ESD from taking place.
6. Provide a directory of disciplinary bodies relevant to SD/ESD, an
overview of their work, and a history of engagement with them
SD / ESD body
Examples of work with them
Association for the ASLE-US holds biennial
Study of Literature conferences, with ASLE-UK
and
Environment holding a conference each ‘off’
(ASLE)
year.
The authors of the present report
were invited to contribute plenary
papers at the inaugural
conference for ASLE-ANZ in
April 2005.
8
History
of
engagement
ASLE, the most
important organisation
for ecocriticism, was
founded in the USA in
1992, and has now
become a major
academic organisation,
holding biennial
conferences that
attract hundreds of
delegates. British
academics have given
papers at all the ASLE
conferences, and
maintained active links
with the committee.
ASLE now has
branches in Britain,
Japan, Korea, India
and Australia/New
Zealand, and a similar
organisation, the
European Association
for the Study of
Literature, Culture and
the Environment, has
been established in
Germany with a
Europe-wide remit.
ASLE-UK was founded
in 1999, and has held
four biennial
conferences. It
currently has a
membership of about
60.
[add more lines if
necessary]
7. Please fill out the table by supplying some examples of learned
bodies/journals operating within your Subject Centre disciplinary areas,
and their orientation towards ESD
[Place an asterisk (*) in the relevant ‘Orientation’ box]
Learned body/journals
Orientation towards ESD
Actively
promoting
ESD or SD
Isle (Interdisciplinary Studies x
in Literature and Environment)
Neutra
l
Likely to be
not
in
favour
of
SD or ESD
Other
comments:
ISLE began in
1993. Appearing
twice a year, it is
the official
journal of ASLE,
and has a
largely but not
exclusively US
focus. Members
of ASLE are
automatically
subscribers.
ISLE publishes
peer-reviewed
articles on the
full range of
ecocritical
topics, short
book reviews,
regular surveys
of new
publications in
the field, articles
on pedagogy,
interviews and
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Green Letters
creative writing
with any sort of
environmental
connection
(poetry, short
stories and
literary nonfiction,
especially nature
writing).
Website:
http://www.unr.e
du/cla/engl/isle/
Green Letters is
the journal of
ASLE-UK; free
to members, £3
to nonmembers. It
publishes peerreviewed articles
on ecocritical
topics, each
issue being
devoted to a
particular theme
(the last two
have been
‘science and
literature’ and
‘film-televisionmusic’). Green
Letters also
publishes short
reviews, creative
writing (a similar
range to Isle), a
directory of
ecocritical
courses and
modules in the
UK and
conference
notices. Email
contact:
GreenLetters@n
x
10
tlworld.com
[add more lines if necessary]
These are the two journals with a specific focus on ecocriticism. Other journals
that have published special ecocriticism editions include Studies in Romanticism,
New Literary History, Keywords, Wordsworth Circle, Borderlines. The journals
Gothic Studies, Colloquy and New Formations are also planning such editions.
None has an overt commitment to ecocriticism.
8. Now do the same for professional associations and other relevant
bodies (a few general ones have been filled in for you: please rate them
as well)
Professional
associations Orientation towards ESD
Other
Actively
Neutra Likely to be comments:
and other bodies
promoting
ESD or SD
l
not
in
favour
of
SD or ESD
Government
x
The present
government (as
of 3rd May)
voices a strong
commitment to
SD, although
they seem to
stress
‘development’
rather more than
‘sustainability’.
DfES (or equivalent)
HE funding councils
Research Councils
x
AHRC is
currently
developing a
very substantial
‘Landscape and
Environment’
funding stream
in the
Humanities.
At BSUC our
senior
management
have
shown
considerable
HEI Senior Management Team x
11
commitment to
ESD
in
the
curriculum.
ProVC Learning and Teaching
Higher Education Academy
x
x
The funding of
reports such as
this
one
suggests
a
positive
orientation
on
the part of the
HEA.
[add more lines if necessary]
9. What are the barriers to enacting ESD within the Subject Centre
disciplinary areas?
[Fill in barriers not on the list or place an asterisk (*) in the relevant ‘SC
Barrier’ box]
Barriers
SC Barrier
(please
fill in)
Difficulty of translating ecological concepts into literary theoretical X
concepts
Awkward fit with subject area
Perceived irrelevance by staff
Curriculum too crowded already and lack of time to update courses
Internal accreditation, validation systems, benchmarks
Requirements of professional associations
Lack of staff expertise and the need to acquire new knowledge
Perceived irrelevance by students
Inability of students to grasp the issues (specifically scientific literacy)
Lack of institutional drive and commitment
Lack of staff awareness
Financial restrictions
Confusion over what needs to be taught
Lack of market for students
Lack of relevant course examples
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X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Reality of future career conflicts with sustainability teaching
Lack of perception of major environmental problems
Lack of academic rigor/misunderstanding
No barriers identified
At this point we thought it was necessary to advance some possible subjectspecific reasons why ecocriticism and ESD have not so far attracted very much
support in the UK compared to the USA.
English has a strong tradition of defining itself as a space where other values
may be voiced than those of industrial rationality, commodification and
consumerism. Leavisite criticism positioned English in this way, opposing the
‘organic’ values implicit in literary culture to the mechanistic and industrialutilitarian values that it saw as dominant in society. The several ‘theory’-based
schools of criticism that challenged the Leavisite orthodoxy in the 1970s and 80s,
in most departments displacing it and taking over much of the curriculum –
Marxism and Cultural Materialism, Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction,
Feminism, Postcolonial Criticism and Queer Theory – repudiated Leavisite and
Liberal Humanist values but continued for the most part to position English as a
site of radical social critique and counter-culture. These versions of English saw
the Liberal Humanist tradition as generally reproducing rather than challenging
social, racial and gender hierarchies. To some, ecocriticism has looked like a
return to Leavisite organicism, and indeed certain ecocritics have seen their work
as continuous with that tradition. These have not been representative of
ecocriticism as a whole, although - especially in its early years - it was a strongly
anti-theoretical movement.
None of these traditions has died out. All are present in some form in most
sizeable English departments. The encouragement of independent and critical
thinking remains essential to the subject’s sense of mission and is recognised in
the English Benchmark Statement. For very many students, English provides the
main forum for the discussion of values. Like any new theoretical approach,
ecocriticism draws on all of the preceding variants of the subject. It has clear
continuity with all the traditions that make English a site of resistance to the
values of industrial capitalism. The idea of sustainable development has to
involve to some degree a rejection of the idea of heedless consumption and
market-driven growth, and therefore of the forms of desire that this kind of growth
generates and needs. But ecocriticism also entails a perception of ecological
relations that will not permit literature to be seen as autonomous. Skills must be
adaptable and transferable, but they should be shaped in response to ecological
values rather than simply the demands of the market place.
10. Attempts to run HE institutions more sustainably can provide learning
opportunities for ESD. Have you come across examples of positive
relationships between such attempts and learning or teaching in the
disciplinary area of your SC?
No.
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11. Identify other disciplines outside your Subject Centre which might be
relevant to your work in ESD, and mention potential collaborations with
other SCs.
. ESD in English is informed by work in a wide variety of other fields. It is overtly and
self-consciously an interdisciplinary field. Some of the key disciplinary relationships are:
 Cultural studies. There has been very little work in ‘green cultural studies’ in
the UK thus far - David Ingram’s work on Hollywood cinema is an exception but there is a thriving related field of ‘animal liberationist cultural criticism’ in
cultural and media studies that concentrates on representations of animals,
as in the work of Steve Baker and Erica Fudge.
 Philosophy. One of the earliest fields to engage with ESD in the humanities.
Environmental ethics is a substantial and vibrant branch of ‘applied ethics’. It
has supplied some of the basic critical vocabulary of ecocriticism, such as
‘anthropocentrism’, ‘deep ecology’ and ‘biocentrism’. Environmental
philosophers typically share with ecocritics an activist orientation to their
subject consonant with their ethical standpoint.
 Visual and performing arts. In interdisciplinary creative arts courses, creative
writing students have worked in collaboration with painters and installation
artists to produce gallery and public art with an environmental content.
 Environmental history. While history is often perceived as a close disciplinary
relation to English, environmental historians have tended to have a more
agnostic or even sceptical approach to political environmentalism than
ecocritics or environmental philosophers. The field includes both landscape
research, as in the work of Oliver Rackham, and cultural history, as in the
work of Keith Thomas or Peter Coates.
 Cultural geography. It typically abjures the activist orientation in favour of a
highly abstract theoretical approach to space and place informed by Marxism
and gender studies.
 Ecopsychology. An important field in the USA, where writers like Theodor
Roszcak have argued that human psychological wellbeing is endangered by
environmental crisis. EO Wilson’s ‘biophilia hypothesis’ may be seen in
ecopsychological terms.
 Environmental biology and ecology. The lynchpin of ecocriticism. Without
scientific analysis and prediction, ESD in the humanities would not exist.
However, the professional agnosticism required of scientists, the highly
specific and detailed nature of scientific research and the communication
problems generated by distinct disciplinary vocabularies makes the
collaborations we would like to see between sciences and humanities rare
and fraught with difficulties.
We have listed relevant disciplines in a rough order of proximity to English. Cultural
studies seems a particularly desirable and feasible partner for collaboration with ESD in
English, while environmental biology would be especially desirable but much harder to
put into practice.
THE WHOLE STUDENT EXPERIENCE
12. How can ESD, as your Subject Centre understands it, contribute
towards the whole student experience?
14
Because it draws in concepts from scientific ecology, ecocriticism invites
students to reflect upon the relationship between types of knowledge normally
regarded as separate. ESD in English also asks students to apply their
discussion of literary texts to other areas of their lives, such as their leisure
activities, the forms of transport they use, their career intentions, indeed their
whole pattern of consumption. The commonly held attitude among students that
literature is there to provide an escape from serious problems, and that
preferences are merely personal, will receive a new challenge from ecocriticism.
13. What knowledge, skills and attitudes might graduates require to live
and work in a sustainable way?
The study of English will not provide students with detailed knowledge and skills
for sustainable living. On the other hand, the study of science alone will not equip
students to challenge and change the culture in the way that SD requires.
Ecocriticism has a chance of persuading students to want to live in a sustainable
way and to understand the cultural forms and assumptions that might help or
hinder sustainable living. ESD in English can develop the critical skills with which
to understand the changing meaning of concepts such as 'nature'. For example,
it questions the idea, prevalent in pastoral traditions from the literary canon to
present-day advertising, of nature as stable and eternal. Contemporary nature
writers bring an ecological understanding of nature into the literary domain.
14. Do the students or tutors within your Subject Centre disciplinary areas
already have links with external employers who require some evidence
of ESD from them before considering their employment?
No.
15. Is there demand for ESD within courses from students?
There is very little evidence on this question either way because most institutions
have not offered these courses. However, at BSUC the third year module 'Writing
and Environmental Crisis', introduced in 1993, has recruited a cohort of 15-50
students every year but one. Since the second year core module on theory,
'Reading Texts', introduced ecocriticism as one of its topics, demand has
increased substantially. Undergraduate Creative Writing in at least two
institutions have offered modules in nature writing and other types of
environmental writing that have recruited well in recent years. An MA in Creative
Writing module at BSUC on environmental writing has recruited consistently over
the past ten years. In our institution, four PhD students have been working in
ecocriticism and related topics.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT 2005/06
16. What would a generic ESD toolkit need to provide in order to make it
useful to your SC?
It would provide:
 Clear definition of key terms in ecology and sustainability.
15



Graphic illustration of threats to SD, including population, biodiversity
and climate change.
Brief position statements from named authorities on contentious issues
such as the compatibility of environmental sustainability and economic
growth, the role of multi-national corporations and free trade.
Interactive learning resources for self-evaluation to encourage a sense
of personal involvement and implication. For example, students might
be invited to assess their personal contribution to climate change by
means of a ‘carbon footprint’ calculator, or else complete a
‘bioregionalism questionnaire’ that promotes reflection on the
individual’s relationship to their bio-cultural locale.
17. Please outline proposals for future work considered necessary to
develop, implement and evaluate innovative approaches to ESD.
Possibilities include:
 Pilot projects to assess the implementation and impact of ESD in
English in several institutions.
 Consideration to be given to modifying the Subject Benchmark
Statement and / or ‘key skills’ to include SD. If English departments
perceive it to be a priority, the subject can be introduced into the
curriculum as part of period modules (e.g. Romanticism), on modules
of national literature (e.g. Canadian or American literature), within
single author modules (e.g. Thomas Hardy, Sylvia Plath), on
specialised topic modules (e.g. ‘Representing Animals’, ‘Writing and
Environmental Crisis’) or on compulsory literary theory modules (e.g.
the ‘Ecocriticism’ section of Peter Barry’s popular text Beginning
Theory, 2nd edition).
 ASLE-UK to offer guest speakers to visit institutions to discuss
ecocriticism and ESD in English.
 An English SC event on ESD once the full report is published and
other awareness-raising has taken place.
 HEA to organise a symposium on ESD across the disciplines.
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