About the course

This course is offered as a 7,5 ECTS course at the advanced (MA) level by Department of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at Umeå University, Sweden. For more information about application information and eligibility, visit this page. The course is particularly targeted at students in the humanities, social sciences, and environmental science, but we welcome students with other backgrounds as long as they are eligible for MA-level courses.

Associate Professor Finn Arne Jørgensen, recently named a Merited Teacher at Umeå University, is the main teacher for the course, which also includes local and international guest teachers, including Dolly Jørgensen, Christer Nordlund, Erland Mårald, and Phil Buckland. The course is organized by Umeå Studies in Science, Technology, and Environment (USSTE), an interdisciplinary research group at Umeå University.

The course was last offered in spring 2015, when it had 17 MA students and 6 PhD students, with backgrounds in history, history of ideas, literature, art, history, museology, sociology, educational sciences, sustainable development, English, archeology, globalization, anthropology, science and technology studies, human ecology, environmental science, biology, and design, from countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Spain, and the United States.

Registration for the 2016 version of the course is currently open.

Optional PhD course
PhD students may have the opportunity to follow the course with some additional assignments for PhD course credit. In the 2015 version of the course, 6 PhD students completed the course. We currently accept notifications of interest from potential PhD students for the fall 2016 course, before we finally decide whether to organize the PhD module. PhD students are expected to actively participate in the online course activities and discussions in the same way as the other students, with an estimated workload of 15-20 hours every week for eleven weeks (October 31, 2016 – January 15, 2017). As with the MA level version of the course, we welcome students from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds. Contact Finn Arne Jørgensen to discuss your participation!

Also more experienced scholars, as well as journalists and other interested parties, have the opportunity to audit the course without earning course credit, but are expected to participate and contribute in the same way as the other students.

PhD students who are not affiliated with Umeå University and auditing participants will be asked to pay a small course fee of 2000 SEK (approximately €215/$240) – this is negotiable for participants from low-income countries or equivalent. This fee must be paid before the course starts.