Becoming Ecospheric: Embracing Life on a Damaged Planet

Catalog description

This seminar explores current theories and practices for understanding—and learning to live responsibly and creatively on—our deeply damaged planet. The theoretical readings will be drawn from the fields of critical climate studies, environmental humanities, new materialism, and multi-species ethnography, and will include such thinkers as Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, Bruno Latour, and Jane Bennet. Their ideas will be explored with the help of a range of imaginative works in many genres: film, theatre, graphic novels, visual art, and performance. A central interest of the course will be in trying out new ways of creating knowledge beyond reading and writing. To that end, we will experiment with a variety of activities and practices, including creative work, to engage with the question: what do we need to know and to do—as individuals and groups—in order for the planet's geophysical systems, landscapes, and species (including our own) to thrive?