Postgraduate Course: Expansive Landscapes: Images and the environment in Renaissance Italy, c.1250-1550 (HIAR11142)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course considers understandings and representations of the environment in premodern Italy and the Mediterranean. It draws on ecocritical methodologies to examine the ways in which people used art to visualise entanglements between the human and nonhuman; reflect beliefs about the created world; and imagine landscapes, past and future. More broadly, it engages with urgent contemporary concerns about the impact of human activity on the earth that sustains us, bringing historic sources to bear. |
| Course description |
This course centres on the visio-material culture of early Renaissance Italy, from the mid-thirteenth to the mid-sixteenth century. It considers meanings attached to specific topographies and environments, from the cultivated fields of the 'contado' to mountain and forest wildernesses; imagined places, and real. A range of images far beyond those traditionally classed as 'landscapes', by artists such as the Lorenzetti and Leonardo da Vinci, will be analysed alongside relevant literary sources including Petrarch and Dante. Taking an expansive view, the course deconstructs the often narrowly defined, art historical notion of landscape and highlights fundamental interrelations between art and the environments in which it is made. Topics might include imaginings of Hell, the Holy Land and Paradise; the constructed nature of the Italian city-state; understandings of place and the 'global' that emerged alongside travel; universalising narratives of conversion to Christianity; the beginnings of colonialism; and the implication of environmental factors, from the climate to pandemic disease, in visual and material culture.
The ecocritical methodologies engaged on this course foreground the role of the visual arts in determining, and reflecting, historical understandings of the natural world. Issues of environmental justice are central to this course. Key readings range from premodern environmental histories to contemporary ecocriticism and activism, alongside histories of renaissance art. Students are actively encouraged to reflect on the continuing resonance of premodern art and to understand its relevance to urgent contemporary environmental concerns.
This course is delivered in weekly, two-hour seminars over ten weeks. Seminars combine group discussion, debate and critical analysis of scholarship and primary sources relevant to the week's topic. Students will be expected to prepare for each seminar by independently completing essential readings. Towards the end of the course, students present their work in a symposium, to practice key skills in communication, presentation and independent research. Some seminars will take place in University and local collections.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 8,
External Visit Hours 2,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 1,
Summative Assessment Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
173 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
This course has 2 components of assessment.
1) Presentation, 8-10 min., 40%, Week 11 to start of exam period, relates to all Learning Outcomes.
2) Essay, 2500 words, 60%, exam period, relates to all Learning Outcomes.
Further information:
Presentation: Students will present at a mini-symposium in a single, extended session at the end of semester. Students may choose to pre-record their presentation or deliver it live. For students with relevant Learning Adjustments, the presentation may also instead take place in a one-to-one session with the Course Organiser.
Resubmission Information
The resubmission arrangements for this course are as follows:
- The resubmission task for the Presentation is a recorded Presentation, 8-10 min., 40%. Students will submit to the original assessment brief.
- The resubmission task for the Essay is an Essay, 2500 words, 60%. Students will submit to the original assessment brief.
Students will receive further resubmission information as per University regulations as necessary. |
| Feedback |
Formative Feedback
Formative practice presentation: students will receive written feedback from peers and Course Organiser in Weeks 8-9.
Formative essay plan: students will receive written feedback within 2 weeks of submission from the Course Organiser on a 500-word essay plan submitted in Weeks 10-11.
The first element of formative feedback relates directly to the Presentation. The second element relates to the Essay.
Summative Feedback
Summative feedback on the Presentation will be delivered in writing by the Course Organiser.
Summative feedback on the Essay will be delivered in writing by the Course Organiser. Further, spoken feedback is available from the CO on request.
Summative feedback will be provided according to University regulations.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Recognise and interpret potential meanings inherent in premodern representations of the landscape and the environment.
- Analyse primary sources and connect these historic sources to the present-day context of environmental crisis.
- Conduct independent research and communicate findings convincingly both orally and in writing.
- Evaluate and critique differing methods, especially ecocritical approaches, to the study of material and visual culture.
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Reading List
Braddock, Alan C. Implication: An Ecocritical Dictionary for Art History. Yale University Press, 2023.
Hughes, Donald J., ed. What Is Environmental History? Polity Press, 2016.
Kimmerer, Robin. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions, 2013.
Massey, Lyle. ¿Ascetic Ecology: Landscape of a Desert Saint.¿ In Making Worlds: Global Invention in the Early Modern World, edited by Angela Vanhaelen and Bronwen Wilson. University of Toronto Press, 2022.
Morton, Timothy. The Ecological Thought. Harvard University Press, 2010.
Ritchey, Sara. Holy Matter: Changing Perceptions of the Material World in Late
Medieval Christianity. Cornell University Press, 2014.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Critical Thinking: The ecocritical methodologies encountered on this course encourage students to question disciplinary norms and see the wider significance of an environmental history of art.
Collaboration: Working in discussion groups to engage with the readings and peer review one another¿s work will foster cooperation and help to develop an understanding of the needs and perspectives of others.
Communication: The presentation element of the assessment will allow students to practice public speaking, using media to convey meaning in a way that creates shared understanding.
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| Keywords | landscape,ecocriticism,Renaissance Italy,environmental history |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Amelia Hope Jones
Tel:
Email: A.Hopejones@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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