https://at-ceu.studyguide.timeedit.net/modules/UGST4024?type=CORECentral European UniversityUndergraduate StudiesEnvironment, Culture and Society3 credits (6 ECTS)Pre-requisites: a commitment to learningMandatory in CPSInstructor: Tamara Steger, Dept. of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Contact:
[email protected] Hours: After class and upon appointmentEnvironment, Culture and Society disrupts our mainstream thinking about the environment by directing our critical attention to how we: - conceptualize the environment - approach environmental issues or conflicts- discern some of the environmental rhetoric through contextual analysis- might forge a more sustainable and just world In Part I of the course, we will garner a sense of our own understandings of the environment and then build from there to examine our assumptions in more complex ways. This will include instances of thinking about different ways of conceptualizing the environment based on a multi-species perspective and questioning boundaries, dynamic subjectivities, and diverse ways of knowing as we convene our learning efforts around case studies and some of the most pressing environmental issues of our time. By the end of Part I of the course, you will have garnered a more fine-tuned, if critical, sense of how you conceptualize the environment and your role in it and understand more why it is so important (hint: how we conceptualize the environment has everything to do with how we navigate climate change, biodiversity, food systems, etc.).We will seek to transcend more traditional environmental studies and sciences courses that tend to be more strictly organized around natural resources (e.g., forestry) or themes characterized by depletion or devastation (e.g., deforestation) giving the impression that it's all gloom and doom. We will do this by tapping into some of the glory and in-between to discover ways forward in re-animating some of the most pressing environmental issues of our time. We will thus venture into the complex dynamics (and contradictions) of select environmental issues and their proposed solutions, while pulling along our thread from Part I of the course: namely, relational dynamics, subjectivities and ways of knowing. You will confront such questions as: Is increasing crop yields the best way to help people survive and keep from going hungry? Is climate change strictly a carbon emissions issue? is biodiversity conservation always a good thing? In short, by the end of Part II, you will have established an inquisitive basis for sifting through some of the murky layers of environmental rhetoric. In summary, this course will prepare you to navigate environmentalism and environmental challenges, opportunities and rhetoric in more complex and nuanced ways and provide an introductory foray into some of the aspects of conducting research in environmental studies. This is a highly interactive and experiential course as we will host invited guests to share their environmental knowledge and experiences while also engaging you in a study project that takes you into various parts of the city of Vienna to study an environmental initiative. This course hence serves the dual purpose of examining environmentalism and environmental issues and conflicts from a personal as well as socio-cultural-ecological perspective while also building in a very preliminary level of experience in environmental studies research skills. Get ready for a challenging, ideally transformative, learning adventure!