V36.0101Environment and Society Spring 2008 Tuesday and Thursday 2-3.15 194 Mercer, 306 *Please note that the details of this syllabus are not finalized. Readings and assignments might change.* Instructor: Anne Rademacher Office: 285 Mercer, 9th Floor Office hours: TBA COURSE DESCRIPTION This course surveys social aspects of the relationship between human beings and the non-human world. Through an exploration of historical and contemporary debates, we will consider the many ways that the relationship between nature and society can be conceptualized and politicized. We will further consider the stakes of various ideas about nature and society. Three analytical questions will guide our inquiry: • How do ideas and knowledge about the environment vary across time and place? • How have ideas about the environment and society developed in relation to historic, economic, and political processes? • How are environmental problems and solutions articulated, and by whom? Throughout the course, we will use theoretical and methodological tools from the social sciences to guide our analysis of the social processes that influence ideas, practices, and debates about the environment. REQUIREMENTS This course covers a wide range of topics and a long historical period. To do well in the course, it is essential that you attend all lectures and complete all the required readings before coming to class. The lectures will assume that you have read the readings thoroughly, and will often introduce additional material that does not appear on the syllabus. Due to the structure and content of the course, attendance is mandatory at all lectures and recitations. Attendance will be taken at every class. Three 2-page analytical commentaries will be due over the course of the semester.Further instructions about the content of these papers will be provided in class. Several short reading assessments – quizzes – will be administered in class. You will complete a group project and short presentation. The content of this collaborative project/presentation will be discussed in class. There will be a final exam. Your final grade will be computed based on the following distribution: • Attendance at all lectures (15%) • Commentaries (20%) • Reading assessments (20%) • Group project and presentation (25%) • Final exam (20%) READINGS Required Books, available at Shakespeare & Co: Diamond, Jared. 1998. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York: Penguin. Price, Jennifer. 1999. Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America. New York: Basic Books. Kline, Benjamin. First Along the River: A Brief History of the U.S. Environmental Movement. Acada Books. Princen, Maniates, and Conca (eds.) 2002. Confronting Consumption. Cambridge: MIT Press. Abbey, Edward. 2006 (1975). The Monkey Wrench Gang. New York: Harper Modern Classics. Kolbert, E. 2007. Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. Bloomsbury. Weisman, A. 2007. The World Without Us. Thomas Dunne Books. LECTURE AND READING SCHEDULE (tentative) January 22 & 24: Introduction: Ideas of Nature Williams, R. 1980. "Ideas of Nature," in Problems in Materialism and Culture: SelectedEssays, pp. 67-85. London: NLB. Worster, D. 1994. Nature's Economy: a History of Ecological Ideas, 2nd edition edition. London: Cambridge University Press, pp. 2-55. Williams, R. 1985. “Ecology” and “Nature” in Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Cambridge: Oxford UP, pp. 110-111 and 219-224. January 29: Environment and History I: Forms of Explanation Diamond, J. 1998. Guns, Germs, and Steel (first 2/3) January 31: Environment and History II: Complicating Causality Diamond, continued (final 1/3) McNeill, William. 1997. “History Upside Down.” New York Review of Books, Volume 44, Number 8. Mitchell, Timothy. 2002. “Can the Mosquito Speak?” in Rule of Experts. Berkeley: University of California Press. February 5: Society, Nature, and American Conservationism I: Kline, Benjamin. First Along the River: A Brief History of the U.S. Environmental Movement. Acada Books. Chapters 1, 3, and 4. February 7: Society, Nature, and American Conservationism II: Price, Jennifer. 1999. Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America. Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2. February 12: Twentieth Century Environmentalism: Limits, Costs, and Causality Kline, Benjamin. First Along the River: A Brief History of the U.S. Environmental Movement. Acada Books. Chapters 5, 6. Excerpt from Rachel Carson, Silent Spring Mishan, EJ. 1969. “The Costs of Economic Growth” February 14: The Limits of Western Environmentalism: Critiques and Alternative Histories Grove, R. 1992. The Origins of Western Environmentalism. Scientific American:42-48.Grove, Richard. 2006. Imperialism, Intelligence Networks, and Environmental Change. Economic and Political Weekly, October 14, 2006. Guha, Ramchandra. 1989. “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique”, Environmental Ethics 11:1 February 19: Complicating Environmental Knowledge Buttel, Fred. 1992. How Do We Know We Have Environmental Problems? Geoforum 23:405-16. Jacobs, Nancy. 2006. “The Politics of Ornithology in Colonial Africa.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2006. In-class screening of Second Nature: Building Forests in West Africa's Savannas, Graham Maughan. Cyrus Productions, c1996. February 21: Human Population… Erlich, Paul. 1970. “Introduction” in Population Bomb. New York: Ballantine. Sen, Amartya. “Population: Delusion and Reality.” New York Review of Books, Vol 41:15, Sept 22, 1994* Malthus, T. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population (selection) World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision. UNFPA. Access at http://esa.un.org/unpp/ Guardian UK special feature on world population (2007). Access at http://www.guardian.co.uk/population/0,,184290,00.html “Environment and US Policy Top Global Fears.” The Guardian UK, July 2007. Access at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/28/usnews.climatechange February 26 :….and Natural Resource Consumption Price, Jennifer. 1999. Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America. Chapters 3 and 4. Princen, Maniates, and Conca (eds.) 2002. Confronting Consumption. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp 1-67.