UC Santa Barbara’s English Department is a national leader in the study of Literature and the Environment. What makes us unique is that, with a total of twelve faculty members offering over two dozen courses, we have seamless, strong coverage in ecocritical coursework from the early Renaissance through the 21st century.  Moreover, we explore environmental issues from British, American, and Global perspectives, using a range of methodological approaches, with such emphases as non-human/human relations, environmental and social justice within a global rather than national context, and the political impact of institutions, networks, and regimes on bodies and the biosphere. Such diversity allows students to take courses as varied as "Natural Representations: Wordsworth, Dickinson, Bishop,” “American Romanticism and Environmental Imagination,” "Postcolonial and Global Ecological Imaginations," “Milton and Ecology,” and "Animal Theory."

UC Santa Barbara’s commitment to environmental issues dates from 1969; after one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history off the coast of Santa Barbara, a group of twenty-one UCSB faculty members calling themselves the Friends of the Human Habitat helped create the modern environmental movement. This commitment to the environment continues today with the faculty and students of our English Department.