Ecologies of Empire, Liberation, and Resistance

4 units · Undergraduate upper division (100-199)

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Exploration of critical conjunctures in Black experience related to ongoing planetary ecological crisis. Study of ways in which colonial conquests exploited land, nature, and more-than-human worlds—as well as Black, poor, and indigenous people—in name of building imperial projects. Through this process, examination of how empire profoundly altered ecologies, social organization, and human-nature relationships and these historical transformations. Starting point of study is concept of ethno-class man or homo-economicus. Consideration of social differences—especially race, gender, and class—as central constructs of capitalism and imperialism that lead to natural resource extraction, labor exploitation, technoscientific knowledge, industrial development, and climate and ecological crises. Examination of political economy—and decolonial and political ecological perspectives on, and responses to—climate change. Study draws upon experiences, popular literature, and scholarship from Black communities in Africa, Caribbean, and Latin America. P/NP or letter grading.