First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Colonized Ecologies

Catalog description

Colonized Ecologies examines the deep-seated colonial roots of today’s ecological crisis. How has colonization shaped the particular environmental crises that we face today? And why are these problems so intractable? In thinking through these questions, we pay close attention to both social and ecological dynamics, and think across diverse colonial and postcolonial contexts, including historical and present-day dynamics in Anglophone settler societies (the U.S., Canada, Australia, and southern Africa) and in postcolonial settings such as Nigeria, Indonesia and Bangladesh. We also use resources of critical race theory to analyze enduring attributes of settler societies, such as private property or the role of livestock, and the intersections between slavery and indigenous dispossession in the Americas. While linking ecological, historical and social dynamics, we read classics from William Cronon, Robin Kimmerer, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Ken Saro-Wiwa. The course concludes by studying on-going colonial legacies for common solutions to climate change.