As for the 15min in-class presentations, please take note of the following guidelines:
Duration: 15 minutes
1. Identify the subject of the text
What is the text about, what is the central topic (e.g. the Anthropocene)
2. Situate the text within its intellectual context
What debates or controversies does the text engage with? Which authors or theories does it respond to or challenge? (e.g. the developments in Earth-System Science in the beginning of the 21st century)
3. Identify the central problem (problématique)
What problem is the author trying to address? What tensions, paradoxes, or ambiguities motivate the argument? Explain why the question is worth asking and what is at stake. (e.g. Does the Anthropocene challenge the modern "Great Divide" between nature and society, or does it merely stand as the latest period of a longer history of "environmental reflexivity"?)
4. Reconstruct the main arguments
Present the author's central theses and explain how they are developed and defended.
Avoid simply paraphrasing the text! Instead, identify its key arguments, reconstruct the reasoning that connects them, and explain how they respond to the central problem.
5. Conclude with a critical opening
You may conclude by identifying the limitations of the text, questioning some of its assumptions, or highlighting unresolved tensions. Please prepare two discussion questions.
