What Does the Environment Look Like?

This course explores the visual dimensions of environmental thought, tracing the ways that images have shaped ideas about nature, risk, justice, and possibility. Moving from 19th-century paintings of the American wilderness to contemporary AI-generated disaster imagery, we will examine the ways that visual culture has been central to imperial expansion, extinction narratives, environmental justice movements, and debates about our planetary crisis. Case studies such as nuclear warning markers, satellite photography, and installation art will address pressing questions about the relationship between visual experience and environmental politics.