- To introduce students to the climate crisis as a historical, cultural, and political phenomenon, and to identify music’s role in its emergence and establishment.
- To recognise how music has been used to respond to the climate crisis and the ideologies that sustain it.
- To explore how music can be used to engage with the natural world and reimagine our relationship with it.
- To develop new and existing practical and academic musical skills as tools for addressing the climate crisis.

(LO1) Identify the cultural and political roots of the climate crisis and their relationship to musical cultures and practices.

(LO2) Identify and appraise a range of musical responses to the climate crisis.

(LO3) Engage critically with a range of ecological perspectives through music and sound study.

(LO4) Recognise likely impacts of climate change on musical and social activity.

(S1) Identify appropriate scientific and humanities literature on the climate crisis and apply it critically to the study and/or performance of music.

(S2) Identify personal and collective strategies for taking action against climate change through musical and academic activity.

(S3) Engage with and evaluate a range of primary and secondary sources.

(S4) Write and communicate effectively about the climate crisis, its causes, impacts, and solutions to it.

Key topics to include:
- Capitalism, colonialism, and extractivism
- Musical representations of the natural world
- Music and ecological knowledge
- Musical materialities
- Gender, race, and the climate crisis
- Are animals musical?
- Sustainability and the music industry
- Musical utopias, dystopias, and speculative fictions
- Music and climate justice
- Music and degrowth

The module introduces topics of sustainability, ecology, extractivism, degrowth, speculative fiction, and climate justice to the undergraduate music curriculum. It also revisits a number of topics already present in the curriculum with an eye to their ecological dimensions and their ability to help explain and/or respond to the climate emergency. These include: music and capitalism, colonialism, and globalisation, music and protest, sound studies, space and place, issues of gender and race, and musical representations of nature. The course encourages global citizenshi p amongst students, and involves them in the process of knowledge creation in relation to music’s connection to the climate crisis alongside the module leader.

Library resources will be accessible through the module reading list; other learning resources will be posted on Canvas. Students should engage with specified readings, online resources, and optional further readings each week in advance of the lectures and seminars, and research their own supplementary resources in order to participate in active learning during lectures and seminars, and to develop their assignments. Students will be encouraged to share their work-in-progress diary entries in seminars to engender discussion, developing study and communication skills in collaboration with their peers and under guidance from the module leader.

Lectures (2 hours per week, 12 weeks) will introduce key themes and debates in relation to the relationship between music and the climate crisis, exploring contemporary and historical case studies and key literature. Students will participate in small group activities, reading sessions, and discussion. Some lectures (max. 3) will be held in outdoor spaces of ecological interest (e.g. campus green spaces, Sefton Park, Liverpool Waterfront), subject to accessibility considerations and risk assessment. Attendance will be recorded.
Seminars (1 hour per week, 12 weeks) will develop discussions and debates introduced in lectures, with specific reference to students’ weekly reflective diary entries. Students will work in small groups and with the module leader to read, discuss, and offer feedback on each others’ reflective writing, thereby building writing and communication skills as well as broadening critical awareness. Attendance will be recorded.
Independent learn ing (c. 9.5 hours per week, 12 weeks): Students should engage with specified readings, online resources, and optional further readings each week in advance of the lectures and seminars, and research their own supplementary resources in order to participate in active learning during lectures and seminars, and to develop their reflective diary (assessment 2). Students will also use this time to research and write their essay for assessment 1. Attendance will not be recorded.