Dimensions of Waste

3 units

Waste is not apolitical. Its conception, creation and management are deeply cultural practices. Students will learn how local stories integrate to larger, cutting-edge research on waste, gleaned from direct, in-person contact with leading waste scholars. Students will have direct contact with renowned experts visiting for the 2017-2018 Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar on Wastelands. Course content will draw from core texts in environmental anthropology and ecocritical theory. We will learn to analyze contemporary perspectives on waste by reading scholarly and activist texts (publications, author visits, blog posts, etc.) as not only disseminators of facts, but also as cultural artifacts of specific epistemologies of waste. Students' final project will be to produce a Mini-Documentary or Podcast using their own original fieldwork interviews to demonstrate the flows of waste in the local St. Louis community.