ENVI 235
Survival and Resistance: Environmental Political Theory
Last Offered Spring 2019
Division II Writing Skills
Cross-listed PSCI 235
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Class Details

Contemporary struggles to reverse environmental destruction and establish sustainable communities have prompted some political theorists to rethink longstanding assumptions about politics and its relationship to nature. Does the environment have “rights”? What, if anything, is the difference between an ecosystem and a political community? Is democracy dangerous to the planet’s health? Are environmental protections compatible with political freedom? How is the domination or conquest of nature connected with domination and conquest within human societies? What does justice demand in an age of climate change? In this class, we will consider the promise and limits of political theory to illuminate present day environmental crises and foster movements to overcome them. We will engage classic texts that helped to establish political theory’s traditional view of nature as a resource, as well as contemporary texts that offer alternative, ecological understandings of nature and its entwinements with politics. Class will be driven primarily by discussion. Students will have significant responsibility for setting the agenda for discussions through informal writing submitted prior to class. As a writing intensive course, attention to the writing process and developing an authorial voice will be a recurrent focus of our work inside and outside the classroom.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 12
Class#: 3548
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: formal and informal writing assignments and class participation
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: first-years and sophomores
Distributions: Division II Writing Skills
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ENVI 235 Division II PSCI 235 Division II
Attributes: AMST Critical and Cultural Theory Electives
ENVI Humanities, Arts + Social Science Electives
PHIL Related Courses
PSCI Political Theory Courses

Class Grid

Updated 6:34 pm

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