Overview
While the topic of sustainability has been around for some time, Dr. Gismondi is inviting students to partner with him and other students in advancing the development of the emergent edges of the field, and to do so in a multi-disciplinary and ‘integrated’ manner.
The course will introduce foundational approaches to the theory and practice of sustainability as well as new critical approaches to the question in the 21st Century. There is no one response to the challenging goal of transition to sustainability. Your own experience, reading, thinking, and writing will be crucial to advancing our collective grasp of sustainability as idea, transformative practice and way of life.
This is a guided reading course. We will read some key texts together and collaborate to develop novel pathways through the field and explore creative assignments that systems change.
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Castree, N., Hulme, M., & Proctor, J. D. (Eds.). (2018). Companion to Environmental Studies.
Physical course materials
The following course materials are included in a course package that will be shipped to your home prior to your course’s start date:
Assadourian, Erik. (2017). EarthED: Rethinking Education on a Changing Planet. The Worldwatch Institute.
Blewitt, John. (2017). Understanding Sustainable Development. 3rd Edition. Routledge.
Gough, Ian. (2017) Heat, Greed and Human Need. Climate Change, Capitalism and Sustainable Development. Edward Elgar.
Klein, Naomi. (2014). This Changes Everything. Capitalism vs the Climate. Knopf Canada.
Kolbert, Elizabeth. (2014). The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
You are expected to access the companion to explore keyword definitions and concepts, to supplement your weekly reading, or elaborate on assignments and paper topics. Treat it like an assigned textbook.