Equity and the Environment: Movements, Scholarship, Solutions

Catalog description

This course will explore how the environment is inseparable from raced, classed, and gendered structures of power. Focusing primarily on the environmental justice (EJ) movement, we will examine how structural inequality gives form to our experiences with the environment, our conceptions of the environment, and our efforts to improve our environments. Drawing from a range of disciplinary scholarship, journalism, public commentary, and videos, this course aims to elucidate how marginalized groups have mobilized to address differential exposure to pollution and waste, climate change, “the wilderness,” pipelines, slums, environmental population control measures, and fossil fuel extraction, among many other topics. This course seeks to serve first-years and sophomores, and build a foundation for students in the Environment and Inequality track of IBES.