Undergraduate Course: Thinking Like an Environmentalist (PLIT10191)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course will cover an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural mix of environmental thinkers, from 500 BC to the modern day. It will explore core themes and challenges in our threatened world through critical and reflective debate, and innovative student engagement. What is the relationship between humans and nature? Exactly why should we care about ecosystems or other species? What political, cultural, or social change would it take to achieve a sustainable world? |
| Course description |
In this course, students will learn about environmental thought via a diverse set of thinkers: from Confucius to today¿s climate activists, Mãori philosophy to ¿deep green¿ ecology. They will engage critically and reflectively with different disciplines and cultural/political perspectives, discussing philosophers, theologians and religious leaders, scientists and naturalists, economists, writers, grassroots leaders, and politicians.
We will explore central themes in environmental thought, as well as key challenges and contentious disagreements: the interdependence of humans and nature; exactly why ecosystems and other species should be protected (for us humans, for religious or aesthetic reasons, or because the natural world matters in itself?); and how to achieve a sustainable world, politically, morally, socially, economically, and ethically.
Students will participate in the final selection of 18 thinkers from a diverse longlist.
Indicative list: Confucius, Aristotle, the Buddha, Francis of Assisi, the Mãori, Hugo Grotius, Amrita Devi Beniwal, Alexander von Humboldt, John Clare, Karl Marx, Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Mahatma Gandhi, Rachel Carson, James Lovelock, Arne Naess, Herman Daly, Yuon Chouinard, Edward Abbey, Wangari Maathai, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Chico Mendez, Sunita Narain, Valerie Plumwood, David Attenborough, Roger Scruton, Winona LaDuke, Octavia Butler, Greta Thunberg.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 4 Politics/International Relations courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses.¿ |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand key themes, concepts, and thinkers in the history of environmental thought.
- Engage critically with a range of environmental thinkers, across several disciplines and cultures.
- Present reasoned, coherent, balanced arguments, in written or debate or visual form, including responding to questions and objections.
- Apply social scientific and ethical concepts and theories critically and creatively to specific places and real-life environmental challenges.
- Engage in reflection on their own process of learning and development, in relation to key environmental concepts.
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Reading List
Cripps, E. (forthcoming), How to Think Like an Environmentalist (Bloomsbury)
[NOTE: this will be a useful overview for the whole course, but the course weekly core reading will be the work of the original thinkers, where available. Additional reading will include scholarly commentary and other sources from biographies to podcasts.]
Confucious (551-479 BC), The Analects (Open Road Media, 2016)
Thoreau, H. (1849, 1854), Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (Fifth Avenue Editions, 2014)
Carson, R. (1962), Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin)
Butler, O. (1993), Parable of the Sower (Four Walls Eight Windows) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Critical thinking
Reflective engagement
Argumentation and presentation skills (written and verbal)
Environmental literacy |
| Keywords | Environmental thought,environment,sustainability,environmental philosophy,ethics |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Elizabeth Cripps
Tel: (0131 6)51 1948
Email: elizabeth.cripps@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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