UCSB introduces environmental humanities minor

UC Santa Barbara introduced a new environmental humanities minor this fall which offers undergraduate students the opportunity to examine environmental issues through disciplines beyond the natural sciences. The program brings together courses from throughout the university to explore how human experiences and cultural perspectives shape environmental challenges and responses to them.

The minor was developed through the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts in the College of Letters & Science and draws from 12 departments and programs spanning the humanities and social sciences as well as the sciences. Its curriculum aims to connect environmental research with fields that look at the historical and cultural dimensions of environmental change.

“Climate change as a threat multiplier is something that cannot be solved from a narrow, myopic perspective,” Yanoula Athanassakis, UCSB’s director of academic initiatives and the Environmental Humanities Faculty Advisory Committee, said.

An interdisciplinary approach to environmental education

Athanassakis previously directed the Environmental Humanities Initiative at New York University, where she helped establish interdisciplinary opportunities for students that were studying the environment. After joining UCSB, she sought to bring a similar approach to the university.

“I was keen to pursue similar initiatives as they bring faculty and students together from different disciplines,” Athanassakis said.

Athanassakis credited Daina Ramey Berry, the Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts, with envisioning the development of three interconnected undergraduate programs in environmental, legal and health humanities.

In UCSB’s Oct. 6 announcement introducing the minor, Berry emphasized the importance of perspectives beyond science in responding to environmental challenges.

“The climate crisis is not only a scientific and technological challenge. It is also a challenge of history, culture, ethics and imagination,” Berry said in the announcement.

Kari Robinson, UCSB’s director of academic services and advising for interdepartmental minors, described the program as an effort to bring academic resources together that students might otherwise come into contact with separately.

According to Robinson, UCSB’s three humanities minors aim to be “intentionally interdepartmental,” with the environmental humanities minor drawing together scholars who approach the study of the environment through a humanistic lens.

What the minor offers students

The environmental humanities minor allows students to investigate environmental questions through subjects such as literature and history, rather than primarily the scientific side. It also incorporates perspectives from the social sciences.

Students begin by completing one of four gateway courses: English 22 (Introduction to Literature and the Environment), English 23 (The Climate Crisis: What It Is And What Each of Us Can Do About It), Environmental Studies 3 (Introduction to the Social and Cultural Environment) or Environmental Studies 70 (Introduction to Environmental Ethics). These options allow students to be admitted into the minor through either an environmental studies course or a humanities course.

To complete the minor, students must take 20 upper-division units from at least three different departments, including at least three courses from the humanities course category, which is known as Area A.

The approved electives reflect the range of disciplines inside the program. Students can explore environmental themes through courses such as Green Games from the film and media studies department or American Environmental History from the history department and even Sustainable Architecture in the history of art & architecture department. Other options examine environmental justice and human relationships with animals.

The minor also includes courses approved for specific quarters, which lets students explore additional subjects outside of the program’s standard course list. For Winter Quarter 2027, the approved course list includes Classics 178, Environmental Interactions in the Ancient Mediterranean World, which gives students an opportunity to examine environmental questions through ancient societies.

The program is intended to help students develop skills they can apply to many different academic and professional fields. Robinson said the minor aims to strengthen critical thinking and “develop communication and analytical skills through oral and written expression.”

Athanassakis also highlighted the importance of giving humanities students opportunities to apply their education to more than the conventional expectations of their fields.

“Humanities majors are often pigeonholed as people that can just write and communicate well, and that’s the end of their skill set,” Athanassakis said.

The minor is designed to complement a range of undergraduate majors, even those outside the humanities. Students who want to pursue a career in environmental advocacy and public service can use the program to discover how cultural and historical perspectives inform environmental decision-making.

For students who are interested in enrolling in this minor, UCSB requires courses applied toward the minor to be taken for letter grades. No more than five upper-division units may overlap with the upper-division requirements of a student’s major or other minors.

Students can see approved courses and other degree requirements on UCSB’s environmental humanities minor website and the Division of Undergraduate Education. Those who want to declare the minor or receive individualized advising can contact envhumanities@ucsb.edu.

A course on video games might seem worlds apart from one on ancient civilizations. Yet under UCSB’s new minor, both offer a different way of exploring the same question: How do humans understand and shape the environment around them?

A version of this article appeared on p.11 of the Nov. 5, 2026 edition of the Daily Nexus.