ANTH 243
Reimagining Rivers Spring 2025
Division II Writing Skills Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed ENVI 243

Class Details

In the era of climate change and widening inequality, how we live with rivers will help define who we are. Rivers are the circulatory systems of civilization, yet for much of modern history they have been treated as little more than sewers, roads, and sources of power. Today they are in crisis. Rivers and the people who rely on them face a multitude of problems, including increased flooding, drought, pollution, and ill-conceived dams. These problems will threaten human rights, public health, political stability, and ecological resilience far into the future unless we learn to manage rivers more justly and sustainably. Can we reimagine rivers before it is too late? This course will pursue this question by examining the social, cultural, and political dimensions of conflict over rivers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Drawing on scholarship from a wide range of social science and humanities disciplines and focusing on case studies in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, it will explore a diverse array of sources: film, fiction, ethnography, history, journalism, and more.
The Class: Format: tutorial
Limit: 10
Expected: 10
Class#: 3267
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: Each week, each student will either write a 5-page essay on assigned readings or write a 2-page critique of a partner's paper.
Prerequisites: None
Enrollment Preferences: Environmental Studies majors and concentrators
Distributions: Division II Writing Skills Difference, Power, and Equity
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ENVI 243 Division II ANTH 243 Division II
WS Notes: Students take turns writing 5-page essays and 2-page responses to those essays, with each writing 6 in total. For each five-page paper, I meet with the student to discuss technical aspects of the paper and specific ways in which it could be improved. At the end of the semester, students have the option of handing in one revised paper as part of a portfolio of papers from throughout the semester. This enables me to have an ongoing, in-depth discussion with each student about their writing skills.
DPE Notes: This course focuses on the role of rivers in struggles over cultural difference, social power, and environmental equity. Throughout the course, students read and write extensively about environmental justice, and they engage with diverse theoretical approaches to studying the intersection of water, power, and social identity. Our focus from beginning to end is on the profound impact of river management on the lives of marginalized indigenous, agrarian, and urban communities.
Attributes: ENVI Humanities, Arts + Social Science Electives

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