First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Environmentalism: A Global History

Semester and Year	FA 2012
Course Number	FIRST-UG78
Section	001
Instructor	Peder Anker
Days	Mon,Wed
Time	9:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement

Notes/Restrictions

Open to Gallatin first-year students only.

Description

We think of environmentalism as a new political movement, but in fact it has a long history--one that has always been engaged as well with questions about the relationship between different parts of the globe. This course traces the history of environmentalism, ecology, and public health back to natural history collecting and bioprospecting in the eighteenth century. The global history of ecological concern stays at the center of this course, which discusses the Swedish, British, German, Russian, South African, South American, and North American contexts in subsequent centuries. We will ask: How did scholars and activists around the world conceptualize “the global”? Whose knowledge and which rationality came to frame our environmental thinking? This seminar will try to untangle the social and intellectual dynamics between natural sciences and environmentally concerned citizens. Readings will include Carolus Linnaeus, Henry David Thoreau, Julian Huxley, Jan Smuts, and Garret Hardin.

Syllabus

FIRST-UG78

Course Type

First-Year Program: Interdisciplinary Seminars (FIRST-UG)