Trashed! A Global History of Garbage and Our Planet's Predicament

4 credits · Graduate

Humans are turning the planet inside out, digging vast quantities of materials out of the ground and spreading them across land, water, and air. The mass of everything ever made now exceeds that of all living things. Waste accounts for mounting proportions of this anthropogenic mass. In our epoch, waste has become the main event. But what does it mean to designate things, places, or people as waste? How does the meaning of waste changed, and how does it reflect value systems? In exploring such questions, this course takes you on a historical world tour that ranges from human excrement to greenhouse gases, and from southern Africa to the Norwegian Arctic. Get ready for a shitty experience!