GLOBE4200 – Advanced Introduction to Development and Environment

Schedule, syllabus and examination date

Course content

This course takes up key issues in sustainable development. We identify key systemic features of the Anthropocene era, and study how different lives are lived under this new planetary condition. We explore the complex interplay between different scales and localities, the role of different actors, as well as the relation between research and policy, within the sustainable development agenda. The course aims to give students a keen sense of the problems involved and how they interconnect; an advanced grasp of how those problems have been understood and theorized within social science and humanist scholarship; and the creativity to see how theory can be linked up with practice to create change.

Learning outcome

  • To better understand what has caused the Anthropocene, what the consequences of this condition are, and what avenues might lead to change.
  • To recognize and critically assess how various actors and groups contribute to, and are affected by, processes of global change.
  • To identify and discuss the problems and dilemmas involved in the ambition to transition to sustainable development.
  • To write and present academic texts of various length and complexity, discuss problems in class and give presentations in various formats, and comment constructively on the work of peers.

Admission to the course

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester?register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for?in Studentweb.

Students enrolled in other Master`s Degree Programmes can, on application, be admitted to the course if this is cleared by their own study programme.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about?admission requirements and procedures.

Formal prerequisite knowledge

The Master's programme is directed towards students with a specialization equivalent to at least 80 ECTS within subjects from the humanities or social sciences, or a specialization equivalent to at least 80 ECTS in sustainable development, or equivalent subjects, as long as the specialization is deemed relevant for the program.

The minimum requirement for admission is that the students must have a bachelor’s degree (equivalent at least to a good second-class honours degree from a reputable university). Students with a natural science background should have at least half a year`s studies (30 ECTS) within the humanities or social sciences to prepare them for the interdisciplinary challenges this programme offers.

Students must also have a good working knowledge of English and should be able to read and follow lectures in this language as well as produce academic texts in English.