Religion, Spirituality, and Ecology in the West

Catalog description

We live in an age of immense and intersecting environmental problems. Has Western philosophical and religious thought contributed to them? If so, how? What theoretical and practical tools – of these traditions or others – can be used to resolve these problems? This course will address these broad questions by exploring classical and contemporary representations of nature and the place of human beings within it. Special emphasis will be given to the relation between nature and culture; the relation between nature and technology; the relation between nature and gender; our ethical duties to the natural environment; and the normativity of nature.