WRITING HISTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

In the fall of 2022, the History department and the Center for History and Economics launched an experimental course: HIST 15E, "Writing Histories of Climate Change." The course was an effort to ask what history, and what social and humanistic approaches more broadly, have to offer to questions of climate action. This report summarizes the lessons learned from the course, and suggests how the experiment can point to a future for interdisciplinary climate education at Harvard.

Part one summarizes the class itself. Part two explores one of the key takeaways that emerged: the urgent need and evident opportunity for more attention to climate in the humanities at this institution.¹ Part three outlines a proposal for a "Clim 10" – a Hum 10 for climate change – discussing how such efforts might fit into Harvard's broader commitment to climate leadership.

Part One: The Class

In the spring of 2022, as part of a research project on economic history, climate, and the environment, Center for History and Economics affiliates began to engage in a number of conversations about the untapped potential for humanistic/social analysis in charting the path towards climate action. Those discussions – involving students and faculty associated with the CHE, including Professors Arunabh Ghosh, Emma Rothschild, Victor Seow and David Yang, and CHE visitor Professor Diana Kim – became the inspiration for a course that would introduce students to various frameworks for telling stories about climate change. Under the leadership of Professors Emma Rothschild and Victor Seow, assisted by graduate TFs Jordan Cannon and Sophie Wilkowske, and undergraduate course/research assistants Connor Chung and Oliver Riskin-Kutz, the course took form in the lead-up to the fall semester.

The course had a primary focus each week, such as "Methane," "Automobiles," "Fossil Fuels," and "Dams." During each week, students were also introduced to new frameworks, methodologies, and types of writing and communication. One week, for example, a former New York Times editor spoke about op-ed writing, and another week, a CA presented on the use of GIS software in historical analysis. Each class began with a lecture presentation of the theme (sometimes by Professors Rothschild and Seow, sometimes by guest speakers, including Professors Yang and Ghosh). These were followed by small-group discussions led by course staff, and a final reconvening to share reflections with the whole group.

The hallmark of the curriculum was a weekly writing assignment, in which students were encouraged to experiment with new forms. Submissions included everything from papers on paleo-climate history to nonfiction essays to photo collections to personal narratives, poems and short stories. Each weekly assignment was first graded only for completion, and returned with extensive comments from course staff; students assembled a selection of their best revised pieces into a graded final portfolio. A key goal was to provide one-on-one intensive writing coaching and an opportunity to hone communication skills. To that end, students were required to meet a quota of office hours, and CAs ran a well-attended optional drop-in writing lab each week.

Feedback about this structure was positive. In course evaluations, students noted that "[t]he format of the weekly responses was one of the most rewarding parts of the class," and that they "really loved the way the assignments were structured." Several expressed appreciation for the "encouragement to explore multiple forms of writing," the chance to "sit down and reflect on our past week without the pressure of formality or grading," and the individualized attention the large course staff was able to provide.

Part Two: Towards a "Hum 10 for Climate"

Reading course evaluations, we found one problem that many students had with the current iteration of the course: they wanted more of it. One wanted the course to be "offered over the course of a year with a culminating final project." Others asked for specific aspects of the class to be amplified. Several would have liked a more formal writing workshop, in which they would have gotten a chance to "dig a little more into the craft of writing"; others thought that a larger course with small sections for discussions would have given both lecture and discussion components more time and space.

The course they were imagining is close to a course of which Harvard's faculty and administrators have spoken before. In 2019, a group of Harvard faculty members largely from the humanities and social sciences wrote a white paper on university climate leadership, calling for, among other things, a "Hum 10-style course on humanity and the environment."  They envisioned a year-long, 120-student course with discussion sections of 15 students led by faculty members. More recently, in 2022, the University issued a report on the "Future of Climate Education at Harvard University," in which they proposed considering "the establishment of a new undergraduate concentration that expands and builds on ESPP but allows for a greater diversity of student interests (e.g., the humanities)."

We propose seeing Hist 15E as a dry-run — a practical template — for what this course might look like. In an expanded Clim 10, a weekly writing section could further develop the course's emphasis on teaching effective climate communication through diverse genres of writing, and could fulfill the first-year writing program requirement. The large roster of guest lecturers in the recent iteration of the course could also be turned into a roster of rotating faculty lecturers, each leading a small discussion section. (Several faculty members with a variety of angles of expertise on climate studies and writing have expressed interest in joining such a course.) We would also advocate preserving the role of the undergraduate CAs in an expanded class — there is such little opportunity for students in non-STEM fields to gain experience with teaching and pedagogy, making it a remarkable opportunity.

In designing and teaching this course, we realized how essential a humanistic and historical approach is to understanding (and understanding how to correct) the dynamics of climate change. Only by understanding the specific, contingent, socially-driven processes that lead to carbon emissions will we be able to confront and change them. Our understanding of those processes cannot be reduced to kilotons of emissions, biogeochemical cycles, and cost benefit analyses. History is necessary to understand why and where people emit, and good writing – journalistic nonfiction, opinion, plays, and poems – is necessary to convey that understanding.

Conclusion

Over the course of the semester, students expressed time and time again in conversations with instructors their interests in exploring the climate from various humanistic and social science perspectives — and their frustration that such climate pedagogy was not more readily available to Harvard undergraduates. This was true among the science concentrators looking for a broader cultural context, and the humanities concentrators interested in putting their skills to use in the fight for climate action alike. Our proposal for an expanded Clim 10 is in hopes of fulfilling this unmet demand.

In addressing that need, Clim 10 would be the first course of its kind. While there are dispersed offerings focusing on climate change through the humanities and social sciences, they tend to be specialized and higher-level. With a large-scale, publicized, deliberately broad, introductory course on the humanistic approach to climate thinking, the University has an opportunity to give cohorts of students the intellectual tools they need to think about climate change in a way that engages with its human causes and looks for its human solutions.

Such a course could draw on, and reinforce, Harvard's broader commitments to institutional climate leadership. The Salata Institute's commitment to "interdisciplinary research that leads to real-world action," for example, would be well-served by programming in the humanistic disciplines. Students of the course will go on to apply their humanistic understanding of the processes of climate change in whatever studies and lives they choose afterwards: in designing policies to further the energy transition, in researching the science and technology needed to secure a clean and just future, and in leading this generation's fight for the future.