The prehistoric and historic character of landscape are significant factors in how landscape is used, developed and characterised; methods covered will include phenomenology, performance, psychogeography and walking. This course will explore subjective and experiential approaches to studying past landscapes as a counterpoint to more traditional objective, quantifiable landscape character assessments.

The course runs over 10 weeks. There are six seminars (lasting 1-2 hours), and three field trips (of 2 - 4 hours duration). One study week without classes is included in the timetable, scheduled before a student presentation seminar. 

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The summative assessment for the course will take the form of an essay, an oral presentation and a scrapbook.

1. The essay will be 2500 words long, and focus on current theoretical and practical applications of experiential approaches to landscape (50%)

2. The scrapbook will be based on the three fieldtrips, and include comment, reflection, photos, sketches, creative mapping and other means to capture the experience of the fieldtrips (equivalent of 1500 words, 30%)

3. The oral presentation will give the students the opportunity to recount their experiences during the fieldtrips, and critically discuss experiential approaches to landscape heritage (15 minutes, 20%)

This course aims to provide students with the opportunity to:

■ understand how we experience heritage in the landscape today at an embodied and sensory level;

■ build up baseline knowledge of a range of currently used experiential and subjective approaches to landscape, including phenomenology, psychogeography, walking and performance, taking a multi-disciplinary approach;

■ gain an awareness of the potential of subjective and qualitative approaches to inform, augment, or combine with, current landscape characterisation practice;

■ understand connections between theory and practice in experiential approaches to landscape;

■ prepare for future careers in relevant areas of research and practice.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

■ appraise different methods and techniques for experiencing landscape heritage in a contemporary setting (essay, presentation);

■ critically evaluate phenomenologies of landscape, and demonstrate an understanding of the benefits of inter-disciplinary perspectives and alternative methodologies (essay, scrapbook);

■ assess the potential of subjective, qualitative assessments of landscape heritage to feed into landscape policy and decision-making processes (essay);

■ plan, carry out and report on a piece of experiential fieldwork with an emphasis on landscape heritage (scrapbook, presentation)

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.