This Land: Environmental Hum & Hope

Catalog description

In this course, we are striving to honor local and Indigenous knowledge, to recognize our relationship to nature, our responsibilities to public health, an approach to the societies and economies we all participate in, and a re-envisioning of the planet for future generations. We direct our attention to the humanities - to culture and philosophy and thoughtful exploration of the past - in order to channel multiple voices, to uplift our own, and to make this new path one of life, creativity and liberation. In this course, students will examine how the humanities can better prepare us to make decisions in response to environmental and climate disruptions. When so many lives are at risk, what do we and do we not owe to others? How could we, as Donna Haraway suggests, learn to stay with the trouble in our environment and our entangled relationships with one another? By the end of the course, students will be able to analyze how artists, writers, thinkers, and historians have attempted to nd meaning and wisdom in the wake of environmental uncertainty - while re ecting on our own lived experiences and impacts. We will discuss a diverse range of materials within the environmental humanities, identifying concerns and describing the historical context and contemporary signi cance of works studied. For example, students will describe the idea of the commons and explore its history, including power dynamics, human rights, and entanglements between settler commons and colonization in the Americas. Through class activities, students will design and implement an applied humanities project centered on the environment. Students will consider three components of sustainability: environment, equity, and economy, while weighing questions of our own lives and our social responsibility.