Arts, Culture and the Environment MA
Year of entry: 2026
Course length: 12 months full-time
About the course
In an era of climate crisis, biodiversity collapse, global pandemic, and social inequality driven by ecological change, how the environment intersects with humanistic questions of culture, values, ethics, and social responsibility is more important than ever.
Combining the study of the environment with methodologies from the arts, on the MA in Arts, Culture and the Environment, you will explore the role played by culture in shaping attitudes towards and responses to environmental change across a wide range of historical and geographic contexts.
Dr Ingrid Hanson
Lecturer in English Literature MA Arts, Culture and the Environment Course Director
Ingrid Hanson’s research and teaching lie at the intersection of literature, politics and culture, mainly in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. She is a lecturer in English literature, author of William Morris and the Uses of Violence (Anthem Press, 2014) and editor of William Morris: Selected Works (OUP, 2024) as well as co-editor of Poetry, Politics and Pictures (Peter Lang, 2013).
She has published work on ecological/political thinking at the Victorian fin de siècle, and on violence, peace, masculinities, medievalism, mourning and socialist utopianism. She is currently working on a book project on political and literary constructions of peace (including land justice and ecologies of peace) in the long nineteenth century, entitled Disturbing the Peace.
In 2024-5, she was a Primary Investigator, with Anke Bernau and Aurora Frederiksen, on Moss Worlds, an interdisciplinary, collaborative project exploring the politics, aesthetics and histories of urban moss. Her teaching is collaborative, active and interactive: she regularly teaches outside the seminar room, including taking students on lichen and moss walks and trips to botanical and historical archives as a way into thinking creatively about texts. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Dr Jenna Ashton
Senior Lecturer in Heritage Studies and Course Unit Lead for Creative Ecologies
Dr Jenna Ashton brings a dynamic research-practice rooted in environmental and social justice, heritage studies, and creative activism to the MA in Arts, Culture and the Environment. She leads the course Creative Ecologies, which explores how artistic and cultural practices can foster care, resistance, and transformation in the face of ecological crisis. Drawing on her extensive experience in community-led and place-based creative work, Jenna’s approach is grounded in feminist heritage methodologies and multispecies ecologies.
With a background in arts making and producing, and certification in permaculture design, she brings a hands-on, systems-aware perspective to ecological thinking and cultural practice. She works in partnership with a range of cultural institutions, grassroots organisations, and environmental networks, locally and internationally, bringing a collaborative ethos to both her teaching and research. Jenna looks forward to supporting students in developing their own creative ecologies — ones that are responsive, ethical, and deeply connected to the world around them.
Dr Kelechi Anucha
Lecturer in Literature & Environmental Justice
Dr Kelechi Anucha approaches her research and teaching practice with curiosity and critical openness, informed by a background in literary studies and the environmental and medical humanities. She has worked collaboratively in cross-institutional, interdisciplinary research teams and as a part of creative projects centred on wellbeing, connection and equality. Her past and current work explores the impact of environmental crises on individual and planetary health, with a focus on how historic and ongoing forms of harm are distributed along racial lines.
She is the convenor for Critical Ecologies, a core module which introduces students to key concepts from environmental humanities, anchoring their understanding of how the politics of climate crisis are registered across various geographical sites, archives and collections, cultural forms and critical-theoretical interventions.
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Faculty of Humanities
The University of Manchester