The Academic Programme

The stable of interlinked postgraduate courses that are to provide the foundational academic programme of the Institute will be organized around an extensive suite of related modules. Although a wide variety of Masters-level courses will be offered, these will all centre in different ways on the same problem: the long term relationship between humanity and nature. Working from a number of shared core modules in areas such as Wilderness and Civilisation and Human Ecology, the programmes will emphasize a variety of public policy, environmental science, economic, sociological and literary-aesthetic perspectives on the problem.

All of the courses will be organized around block teaching, allowing the academic modules to mesh with the seasonal rhythms of the residential programme, and allowing also the institute to draw more freely on the expertise of our Keele University, as well as the services of guest lecturers from other institutions.

Residential Programme

The profoundly collective and interdisciplinary learning culture will also be enhanced by the Residential Programme described fully in the Breaking Bread section. This programme of ancillary activities has a direct bearing on the central intellectual problem. The bushcraft training along with activities such as foraging are designed to intimate a very real sense of the pattern of life and interactions with the environment that would have been experienced by British Paleolithic aboriginals. Similarly the range of activities centering on the smallholding will provide a proxy for the changes brought about in the wake of agrarianisation. Taken together these background activities will provide a constant intellectual and emotional impetus to debate and deep reflection about the nature of human ecology and the ecological past and future of humanity as a species.

Please note: None of these programmes is yet running. The institute is still in the planning stages. The specific programmes to be offered will depend to a great extent on the response from prospective students. If you are interested please click here. Please feel free also to suggest alternative courses that would fit within the framework and philosophy of the institute.