VEGAN: Climate Justice, Animals, Race, and Gender

Catalog description

With Covid-19 not yet in our rearview mirrors, with climate change looming as a longstanding global threat without promise of a vaccine, now is the time to imagine, forge, and inhabit new ways of living. Veganism is a philosophy of life that confronts and destabilizes longstanding societal structures of race, gender, class, speciesism, and ableism and, maybe most radically, capitalism. In this class we will hear from some of the leading activists, writers, and voices of veganism and have the unique opportunity to engage with their work and ask them about it – this is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity. Vegan fashion, vegan food, vegan athletes, vegan meat, vegan cinema: what does that look like? We will explore topics ranging from scientific denialism, to climate change, to animal ethics, to food security, to racial justice, to how it is that the language we use to describe dilemmas implicitly reinforces their existence. This class is offered once a week as both short pre-recorded modules and live interaction with them. Each class will have a short guest lecture followed by a Q&A. Attendance is required in real time and you will be asked to do readings in advance of lectures. Readings will include fiction and nonfiction (Jonathan Safran Foer, Syl and Aph Ko, Eric Schlosser), excerpted critical essays, op-eds, and required films including: Cowspiracy, and Blackfish. This course is part of the NYU Big Ideas series and will be offered in Fall 2020 only.