Most environmental issues were literary, and treated as having a moral dimension, before they became subjects for scientific study. For example, writers in England, from Blake to Orwell, were deeply concerned with environmental consequences of industrialization. This series of occasional seminars aims for a holistic approach, in grappling with environmental moral issues as confronted and explored in literature and science. Among these issues are hunger; mining; deforestation; air and water pollution; public health; and the cost of war.
In the opening seminar, Charles Godfray will speak on scientific approaches to the complex problem of hunger while David Aberbach will outline the literary background, particularly ways in which literature between the time of the Industrial Revolution and World War II reflects the scientific revolution by which extreme hunger became, for the first time in history, conquerable in principle.