HUMN4325 - 01 - Frozen! The Climate Crisis Of 1816

This course engages with climate science and sustainability by looking back to the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history., the eruption of Mt. Tambora in April of 1815. The course examines the ensuing worldwide climate disaster from many perspectives: literature, history, art, music, mathematics, chemistry, physics and architecture. By connecting that crisis of global cooling with our own crisis of planetary warming, students come to understand that climate is not just a data set; climate is also a discourse with a cultural history that can be revealed through humanistic inquiry.