Beyond Nature-Culture

Catalog description

The boundaries between "nature" and “culture” might once have seemed clearly defined: they underlay, for example, the distinction between the objects of the natural sciences and those of the humanities and social sciences. Today, however, these boundaries appear more unstable than ever. Claims about biological determinism and cultural construction are increasingly complex and contested. At the same time, ecological and planetary events foreground our interconnectedness with our environment, and with the various species that inhabit the Earth. Structured around fundamental problems that challenge the nature-culture divide, this course explores how we need to move beyond this dualism to better understand the contemporary world, through case-studies located at the crossroads between anthropology, biology, ethology, and philosophy. We will first address how the nature-culture dualism plays a crucial role in relationships of domination, by assigning racial or gendered "others" to the realm of nature. In the second part of the class, we will explore how our relationship with animals and landscapes is both informed by, and challenges, the nature-culture dualism.