Climate change is the worst environmental problem facing the earth. Sea levels will rise, glaciers are vanishing, horrific storms will hit everywhere. After looking briefly at the impacts of climate change on natural and social environments both in the present and near future, we then consider how to best reduce climate change and how to adapt to its impacts. Issues of climate justice,divides between the global North and South, social movements, steps taken in different countries and internationally, and the role of market and regulations are addressed.
This course studies art that is motivated by ecological concerns, exploring how artists and activists have adapted artistic strategies to address environmental issues over the past 50 years. Themes to be addressed may include sustainability, materiality, labor, and recycling; how artists collaborate with natural processes; how art can address crises such as industrial toxins and global warming; and the place of human ecologies and political struggles in relation to gender, race, poverty, territory and indigeneity. The class will look broadly at environmental art but will focus specifically on one or two neighborhoods as case studies in the Chicago area; another case study will be the region around Carbondale in southern Illinois.
ENVR_POL 390 Special Topics in Environmental Policy and Culture: Political Ecology
This class is an introduction to Political Ecology, a multidisciplinary body of theory and research that analyzes the environmental articulations of political, economic, and social difference and inequality. The key concepts, debates, and approaches in this field address two main questions: (1) How do humans' interactions with the environment shape power and politics? (2) How do power and politics shape humans' interactions with the environment? These questions are critical to understanding and addressing the current issues of climate change, the Anthropocene, and environmental justice. Topics discussed in this class will include environmental scarcity and degradation, sustainability and conservation. Readings will come from the disciplines of geography, anthropology and archaeology. Case studies will range from the ancient, to the historical and the present-day. No prior background in the environmental sciences is needed to appreciate and engage in this course.
