ENVI 481PLiteratures of Sustainability

Catalog

ENVI 481P Literatures of Sustainability - Trauma, whether experienced in the context of weather disasters due to climate change, familial histories of interpersonal violence, or trauma related to multiple forms of cultural bias, has long-term effects on both our physical and mental health. What does it mean to have a sustainable life? The "five pillars" of sustainability (Human, Social, Economic, Environmental, Cultural) will be linked to recent developments in affective neuroscience to provide a larger understanding of the way chronic stress physiology informs our relationships and ways of being, and how these issues intersect with climate. We will engage these developments alongside cultural texts that represent this kind of experience, including comedy, movies, novels, and documentaries. These will be paired with the most recent work in the neuroscience of trauma that locates mental health practice in an anti-oppression framework and formulates these developments as part of a sustainability strategy that addresses climate anxiety and hopeful directions for the future.