Environmental Wayfinding: Cultural, Artistic, and Spiritual Approaches to Life on a Changing…

Catalog description

Imagine you woke up tomorrow in a sustainable society. What would this look like, and what would it have taken to get here? Would our work be complete, and what does sustainability even mean? "Environmental wayfinding" is an interdisciplinary course that emphasizes ways of knowing and being not typically centered in current sustainability discourses. These include practices of embodiment, intuition, creativity, contemplation, and relational knowledge. In this course "wayfinding" serves both as a metaphor - supporting students in "finding their way" emotionally, spiritually, and culturally in the face of unfolding global crises - and as an opportunity to explore humanities-based practices that can inform sustainability solutions. The class is arranged topically around current issues, and burning questions that rest at the heart of the study of sustainability and ecology such as how to navigate crises, sustain community, repair and restore the planet, learn from the more-than-human world, and imagine just futures for all. Each week we explore how different cultural, artistic, and spiritual disciplines and practices have attempted to answer these burning questions - doing so with our eyes trained upon complex, real-world problems. Students of any background seeking an introduction to, and focus on, the study of sustainability from various humanistic perspectives will find a home in this course. Material created in this class can be used as a potential capstone project.