Race and Environment

Introduces students to the entangled forces of coloniality, racism, and capitalism as they shape global environments, and vice-versa. Drawing on sources that center the expertises of indigenous, Black, and brown communities, class explores how racialization occurs through imperial violence to ecologies and their inhabitants. Studies long arcs of colonial science and power to understand how nature has been normalized as an object of ownership, extraction, pollution, and control. Students explore whose knowledge shapes environmental discourse, how discourse shapes material realities, and under what conditions science resists colonial habits of thought or enables them to flourish. Prerequisite(s): previous or concurrent enrollment in ENVS 100 and ENVS 100L, or by permission of the instructor.