Cultural Ecology and Sustainability

Catalog description

Could the quest of modern society for sustainability, in the face of devastating climate change and massive biodiversity loss that threaten life on Earth as we know it, gain from understanding how other past and present cultures around the world have dealt with sustainability challenges? Are there cultural patterns or clusters of ideas underlying the deleterious actions of modern culture towards the natural world that could be clarified through a comparison with indigenous or traditional cultures, some who lived sustainably for thousands of years and even enhanced the biodiversity of their surrounding environments? If cybernetic and semiotic principles that guide living systems were clarified, would this lead to more ecologically robust ways of engaging with the natural world and resolving contemporary sustainability issues? Is it the essential task of our time to develop and globalize an ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable "beyond modern" definition of human being? Is the global environment decay of our earthly home perhaps a clarion call by nature, compelling our species to integrate the wisdom of traditional knowledge along with the spectacular scientific and technological achievements of modernity if we are to survive? This seminar will explore these questions and more, with a primary objective of enhancing student environmental advocacy along with increasing their depth of experience when interacting with the natural world. Offered as ANTH 347 and ANTH 447 .