UBC ANTHROPOCENE IMAGINARIES SYLLABUS 540C 2023
Course Overview Representations of culture and environment have compelling implications for human rights and Indigenous sovereignties over land, water and natural resources. This course explores evolving concerns around the climate and nature emergency, and considers how cultural visions and aesthetics of place in the twenty-first century are interconnected with emerging global discourses about environmental security, governance and power. Blending perspectives from the environmental humanities, STS, and anthropology, we will reflect upon ethnographic approaches to political ecology and the idea of “the Anthropocene”. As geologists debate whether we are living in “The Anthropocene”, critical theorists are learning to ask new questions about historical and structural inequalities, for human security is shaped not only by changing climates, but also by how we frame the understandings and ethical commitments we articulate in response. Classes meet once per week in seminar workshop format, face-to-face. Interdisciplinary students are welcome.
