Disability, Ethics, EcoJustice

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Environmental justice movements raise a powerful ethical call to challenge entrenched patterns of environmental racism and classism that force marginalized communities to bear the brunt of climate change and environmental harm. This course examines disability as a cornerstone of environmental justice ethics, reckoning with the way disabled people face disproportionate harm from climate crisis and environmental violence. We analyze the ways ableism, racism, and other forms of structural inequality intensify disabled people’s risk during and after extreme weather and natural disaster, as well as the way such forces intensify environmental inequality, toxic exposures, and chemical harm. We ask how Jewish and Christian traditions might reimagine ethics for an age of environmental crisis, reading contemporary accounts of disability and climate catastrophe alongside biblical and rabbinic traditions of flood and cataclysm. We also center the voices of disability activists and disabled artists to consider how disability culture prompts new ways of living with an imperiled earth, honoring adaptation, embodied limits, and the practice of community care. Select students will also have the opportunity to join a faculty-led research team as part of the Disability and Climate Change Public Archive Project, documenting the insights and expertise of disability activists and community leaders grappling with climate crisis.