Sophomore Seminar: Slow Violence: An Introduction to Political Ecology

3 units

This sophomore seminar is as an introduction to the related fields of political ecology and environmental history. Students will learn how to use the tools of political economy and historical inquiry to understand how environmental change and conflict are informed by political, economic, and social dimensions. While hurricanes and forest fires serve as spectacular symbols for an ecosystem gone wrong, it is the pervasive slow violence of the unspectacular, the invisible, that seeps into the daily lives of millions across the globe. From toxic waste deposits creating cancer clusters to the long-term effects of consistent heat exposure, the environmental consequencs of human agency are played out in the deteriorating bodies of the poor and in the slow and steady contamination of the landscape.