Belonging to Nature in The Anthropocene
3.0
creditsAverage Course Rating
This course explores debates in contemporary environmental political thought concerning humanity's relationship to nature in the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene refers to the era in which "human" activity becomes a force of "nature"–when the impact of human activity on natural processes manifests itself in the stuff of the Earth. For many of us, these planetary transformations are hardly noticeable in day-to-day life, but they are dramatic: we are living through the Earth's sixth mass extinction. What is our relationship to these transformations? Do we have the power to stop them, or at least to minimize their harmful effects? Course readings and films introduce multiple visions of the human/nature relationship and examine the responses they recommend to these and other questions. The political stakes of these visions are brought to light as we consider: How do visions of the human/nature relationship shape and texture core political concepts like freedom, agency, responsibility, and progress? What do they suggest about the strategies most likely to motivate action amid the uncertainty of the Anthropocene? How do these visions subtly (and not so subtly) relegate some to the realm of "nature" so that others can be classified as "human"?
No Course Evaluations found