ENVI 303
Cultures of Climate Change
Spring 2023
Division II
Cross-listed
SOC 303
This is not the current course catalog
Class Details
This course asks why people think and talk about climate change in such very different ways. Climate change is a physical phenomenon that can be observed, quantified, and measured. But it is also an idea, and as such it is subject to the vagaries of cultural interpretation. Despite scientific agreement about its existence and its causes, many people do not see climate change as a serious problem, or as a problem at all. Many others see it as the most serious problem our species has ever faced. What are the sources of this disparity? Why can’t we agree about what climate change means? How does something as complex as climate change become a “problem” in the first place? And what can its many proposed “solutions” tell us about the role of culture in environmental policy, politics, and decision-making. This course will explore a broad array of factors, from religion to race, class to colonialism. Emphasizing ethnographic and historical accounts of climate change as lived experience, it will apply a range of theories from the social sciences and humanities to case studies from around the world.
The Class:
Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 3768
Grading: no pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 3768
Grading: no pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation:
a 15- to 18-page research paper and several shorter writing assignments
Prerequisites:
ENVI 101 or permission of instructor
Enrollment Preferences:
Environmental Studies majors and concentrators first; Anthropology and Sociology majors second
Distributions:
Divison II
Notes:
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ENVI 303 Division II SOC 303 Division II
ENVI 303 Division II SOC 303 Division II
Attributes:
ENVI Humanities, Arts + Social Science Electives
Class Grid
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HEADERS
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CLASSESColumn header 2DREQColumn header 3INSTRUCTORSColumn header 4TIMESColumn header 5CLASS#
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ENVI 303 - 01 (S) SEM Cultures of Climate Change
ENVI 303 - 01 (S) SEM Cultures of Climate ChangeDivision IICancelled3768