NATURE MATTERS: Readings on Life and Nature- Course Introduction

KANNUR UNIVERSITY

English Common Course (ECC)

Readings on Life and Nature

Prescribed Textbook: Nature Matters by MainSpring Publishers

2A03 ENG

Welcome

Dear students welcome to the second-semester classroom. You may be sitting in the same classroom and meeting the same teachers. This might force you to think that everything is just the same. This is a misunderstanding. You are in the second semester, a semester older since you first joined college. Now, it's time to move forward with some new and exciting plans. You may have committed several mistakes in your academic as well as personal life. Please do not repeat them all. Try as much as you can to avoid mistakes. Your intelligence is visible in the way you avoid committing the same mistakes again.

Introduction

One of the greatest mistakes made by human beings is the mistake of thinking that the earth and nature are abundant with resources.

Human beings in almost every culture have been using natural resources, like water, petroleum and its many by-products, other fuel sources like coal, etc for enhancing cultural experiences. By cultural experiences I mean, the so-called material development, agriculture, development of industrial societies, setting up of villages, the founding of cities, etc.

In this course, we will study three modules. The first and second modules have five chapters and the third module has four. The syllabus is a combination of poetry, articles, life writings, and responses on contemporary issues.

The End Semester Evaluation of the course shall carry 40 marks and the Continuous Evaluation shall carry 10 marks (5 for internal exams and 5 for assignments).

Every student should familiarise oneself with the "Course Outcomes" of Readings on Life and Nature.

For more details and "Course Outcomes" use the following link and download the syllabus of Readings on Life and Nature.

Readings on Life and Nature- Syllabus DOWNLOAD

Every student should keep a print out of the syllabus in a neat file folder. The Course Outcomes should be read and understood with the help of the teacher before starting the class. At the end of the syllabus, the Course Outcomes should be evaluated again based on the classes conducted. You should asses your progress based on the evaluation of Course Outcomes at the end of the course.

References for Teachers

The following books and essays can be used for further reading and reference by teachers and can also be suggested to students. I have soft copies of the materials. However, I cannot share them openly as it may raise copyright claims.

Needless to say, these materials shall be immensely valuable for the second-semester students as they study the Readings on Life and Nature. Especially, assignments can be given based on the following materials.

1. The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

[MLA CITATION:

Weisman, Alan. The World Without Us. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007. PDF file. ]

            This book deals with the question of humanity's impact on the planet.

2. Two essays by Dipesh Chakrabarty: Climate and Capital: On Conjoined Histories, The Climate of History: Four Theses.

            These two seminal essays by Chakrabarty discuss the concept of Anthropocene in detail. He elaborates on how the impact of the human species is not just a species-level interaction upon nature but has become an ecological force.

[MLA CITATION

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “Climate and Capital: On Conjoined Histories”. Critical Inquiry. 41.

(2014). 1-23. Web. 20 September 2015. 

-----------. “The Climate of History: Four Theses”. Critical Inquiry. 35. 1 (2009): 197-

222). Web. 20 September 2015.  ]