Climate and Society: Past to Present

Graduate / Professional

Seminar on the major currents of thought regarding climate and climate change; first looking at disaster—the social origins of disastrous events, and the attribution of societal “collapse” to extreme climatic events; then causality—the revelatory character of climatic perturbation, politics and the history of efforts to control weather/climate, and modern theories of environmental determinism; next history and culture—the ancient tradition of explaining differences among people in terms of differences in climate, and cross-cultural differences in views of climate; and finally knowledge—the study of folk knowledge of climate, local views of climatic perturbation and change, and story-telling and landscape. The course concludes with classes devoted to readings selected by students, student presentations of term papers, and a lecture by the class TF/CA. The goal of the course is to examine the embedded historical, cultural, and political drivers of current climate change debates. This course counts towards Yale College requirements in social science and writing. It is open to graduate and undergraduate students. Enrollment capped. 3 Course cr Th 1:30pm-3:25pm