The Environmental Humanities curriculum is designed around three intersecting areas of knowledge: Environmental Literatures and Cultures, Environmental Research, and Environmental Collaboration and Community. It draws on courses from across the university to create a curriculum that trains students to approach environmental problems and solutions from mulitple angles.
Environmental Humanities Major: 13 Courses (50 Units)
Lower Division (5 classes; 20 units)
1: Intro to Environmental Communications (EH 001/ENG 001) (4 Units)
Introduces students to the basics of ecology and climate change; scientific methods; environmental racism and justice; and principles of effective environmental communications, including attention to audience. Students will also be introduced to emotional resources for caring for themselves and others when dealing with heavy issues like environmental injustice and climate change. Course will feature guest speakers from environmental law, business, activism, the National Park Service, and government. Students will conduct both group and individual projects.
2: One Lower Division Environmental Literature Course (4 Units)
These literature courses introduce students to the basic principles of environmental literature and to beginning to develop their own rhetorical and creative voice on environmental topics. Courses include:
ENG 019: Animals and Literature
ENG 058: Nature Writing and the Environment
ENG 059: Apocalyptic Literature
ENG 067: Environmental Justice in Beast Fables
ENG 060: Science Fiction & Climate Disaster
3: One Lower Division Environmental Literature or Social Justice Literature Course (4 Units)
These literature courses focus on environmental or social justice topics and introduce students to reading and analyzing environmental or social justice writing and creating their own pieces of environmental or social justice writing and media. Courses include:
ENG 019: Animals and Literature
ENG 058: Nature Writing and the Environment
ENG 059: Apocalyptic Literature
ENG 067: Environmental Justice in Beast Fables
ENG 060: Science Fiction & Climate Disaster
ENG 031 Intro to African American Lit and Culture
ENG 032 Intro to Chicano/a Culture
ENG 033 Literature and Sexuality
ENG 034 Literatures of Asian America
ENG 061 Native American Memoir
ENG 062 Literature and Gender
ENG 063 20th Century Women Writers
ENG 064 LGBT Fiction
ENG 071 Literature of Illness and Disability
ENG 089/CCST 014/SPAN 014 Introduction to Nahuatl Literature, Language and Culture
4 & 5: Two Environmental Science or Engineering Courses (8 Units)
This requirement familiarizes students with the basics of various science and engineering issues related to the environment and the processes of scientific research. Courses are chosen because they explicitly address climate, ecology, biodiversity, environmental engineering and design, and/or scientific methods. Courses include:
COGS 013: Scientific Thinking
ENGR 096: Human-Centered Research & Design
ESS 002: Sustainability Science
ESS 010: Earth Resources and Society
ESS 015: Weather, Climate, and the Environment
ESS/BIO 034: Introduction to Marine Science
ESS/BIO 043: Biodiversity and Conservation
ESS 050: Ecosystems of California
ENVE 010: Environment in Crisis
ENVE 020: Introduction to Environmental Science and Technology (if student meets pre-reqs)
ENVE 030: Evaluating Sustainable Spaces: Leadership in Energy, Environment & Design (LEED)
PHYS 001: Physics for Future Leaders
BIO 141: Evolution
ESS/BIO 113: Sustainability in the Anthropocene
ESS/BIO 129: Paleoecology
ESS/BIO 130: Plant Biology
ESS/BIO 148: Fundamentals of Ecology
ESS/BIO 172: Sustainability of Agricultural Ecosystems
ENVE 140: Water Resources Planning and Management
MIST/ENVE 118: Climate Change: Science and Solutions
MIST/ENVE 164: Energy Policy
Upper Division (8 classes, including 2-credit Internship or Co-Curricular, 30 units)
1: English 130: Writing to Save the Planet (4 units)
This class features both group and individual projects asking students to create professional and creative pieces of environmental writing, after studying the effectiveness of various environmental communications (literature, journalism, and media). Students read and synthesize professional scientific and social scientific environmental research carried out by UC Merced researchers, and then turn it into communications (accessible essays, stories and poems, op-eds, films, etc) for various audiences.
2 & 3: Two Upper Division Seminars on Environmental Literature (8 units)
These courses develop reading and writing skills as students analyze and respond to environmental literature and theatre. Courses include:
ENG 108: Romanticism and Apocalypse 
ENG 122: Nature Writing and the Environment
ENG 123: Literature and Animal Studies
ENG 125: Ecology and Indigenous Religious Traditions
ENG 167/GASP 103R: Theatre and Ecology
ENG 168: Shakespeare and Ecology
ENG 183: Literature and Queer Ecology
SPAN 181: Special Topics (Latin American Environmental Literature)
SPAN 181: Special Topics (Central American Indigenous Literature)
WRI 114: Environmental Writing
4: One Upper Division Seminar on Environmental Literature or Social Justice Literature (4 units)
These courses develop reading and writing skills as students analyze and respond to environmental and social justice literature and theatre. Research papers and projects develop skills of conducting and presenting research, and small group activities and projects in these small seminars develop community-creating and team-building skills. Courses include:
ENG 108: Romanticism and Apocalypse
ENG 122: Nature Writing and the Environment
ENG 123: Literature and Animal Studies
ENG 125: Ecology and Indigenous Religious Traditions
ENG 167/GASP 103R: Theatre and Ecology
ENG 168: Shakespeare and Ecology
ENG 183: Literature and Queer Ecology
SPAN 181: Special Topics (Latin American Environmental Literature)
SPAN 181: Special Topics (Central American Indigenous Literature)
WRI 114: Environmental Writing
ENG 111/CRES 152: Mesoamerican Literature and Culture
ENG 112: South Asian Literature and Culture around the World
ENG 113: US Latino/a Literature
ENG 115: Chicano/a Literature
ENG 117: Literature of California
ENG/CCST 120: Chicanx, Lantinx & Indigenous Representation in Literature and Culture
ENG 132: Human Rights and Literature
ENG 139 Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry
ENG 155: James Baldwin and Toni Morrison
ENG 169/ GASP 153: Theatre and Social Responsibility
ENG 184: Literature and Queer Studies
ENG 185: Reading from the Margin
5: One Policy & Society Course (4 Units)
This requirement asks students to take a class that is related to the social, political, and/or judicial aspects of environmental issues. Courses include:
ENG 132: Human Rights and Literature
ENG 133: Race, Law, and American Literature
ENG 134: Poetry and Justice
ANTH 112: Political Anthropology
ANTH 116: Indigenous Activism in the Americas
ANTH 131: Space and Place: An Anthropological Perspective
ANTH 151: Human Adaptability
CRES 120: Race, Law, and Civil Rights
CRES 183: Intersectionality
HS 183: The Cultural Landscape
MIST 120: Parks and Protected Areas
MIST 164: Energy Policy
PH 110: Environmental Health
PH 137: Insects and Public Health
PHIL 122: Bioethics
PHIL 128: Human Rights
6. One Language and Ethics Course (4 Units)
This requirement leverages UC Merced’s strengths in linguistics, cognitive science, and philosophy to ask students to explore the ethical and social aspects of language and communication, learning how language and other forms of communication affect audiences and disrupt or codify power structures. Courses include:
ENG 118: Literature and Philosophy
ENG 121/PHIL 141: Topics in Continental Philosophy
SPAN 107: Spanish for Health Professionals
SPAN 177: Sociolinguistics and Latino Health
COGS 150: Language, Cognition, and Interaction
COGS 159: Metaphor and Thought
COGS 170: Judgement and Decision Making
COGS 176: Culture and Cognition (in Curriculog for Fall 2023 start)
PHIL 104: Ethical Theory
PHIL 105: Philosophy of Language
PHIL 106: Philosophy of Science
PHIL 108: Political Philosophy
PHIL 119: Topics in Philosophy of Science
PHIL 120: Applied Ethics
PHIL 122: Bioethics
PHIL 128: Human Rights
7: Internship or Co-Curricular (2 units)
EH 192, taken for two units
Students will begin to apply their knowledge and hone their community-building skills through active participation in a campus environmental program or club, or an external internship, and be asked to write about their experiences.
Campus options (at least one semester of active participation while taking EH 192):
RadioBio, Yosemite Leadership Program, Shakespeare in Yosemite, CALPIRG, LEED Laboratory, Sustainable Agriculture Society, Campus Garden, Student Sustainability Council, Earth Club, UC Sprouts, Sustainability Outreach Student Association, or other approved environmental club TBD
Or: Internal or External Internship in Environmental Humanities (1 semester or summer)
8: Capstone (4 units)
EH 190: Capstone in Environmental Communications
Project-based group and independent academic research on a topic, with the results communicated in multiple real-world modalities (for example: white paper; editorial; story, poem, play; essay; oral conference paper; legal argument; activist speech; digital media presentation). Open only to EH majors. In springs 2026 and 2027, majors will take an ecology-themed ENG 190 to fulfill this requirement, and the first stand-alone version of this course will be offered in spring 2028.
