Special Topics courses are interdisciplinary classes offered whose subject matter relate to current, relevant topics in Environmental Science and Sustainability. All Special Topics courses count toward the major and minor elective requirements, even though they are not listed in the regular College Course Catalog. For a list of Special Topics courses being offered currently, follow this link.
Spring 2010 Special Topics in Environmental Studies
Environmental Aesthetics (ESS 144/PHIL 144) [BI, BH] - Professor Erik Anderson
Click on the title link to see a complete description of the Environmental Aesthetics course.
Sustainable Harvests: Food Justice & 20th Century U.S. Literature (ESS 191, sec. 1/English 118) -Prof. Sarah Wald
What should you eat? How did your dinner get to your plate? This class examines contemporary politics around food, including hunger, health, and agriculture. We will ask how to make food production and consumption sustainable. Yet we will also examine a longer culture of concern for what we eat and how we farm. This class uses Food Justice as a window into 20th Century U.S. literature. We will read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906) alongside Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats (1999). We will read John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) alongside Cherrie Moraga’s Heroes and Saints (1994) and Willa Cather’s O Pioneers (1913) alongside Wendell Berry’s “Mad Farmer Liberation Front” (1999). Our readings will include poems, novels, essays, and one play as we examine 20th Century U.S. literature through debates around farming, food, and land. [BI, BH]
Environmental Justice (Anth 135 and ESS 191/sec.2) - Professor Joslyn Cassady
Over the last twenty years, there has been a ground swell of national and international attention to environmental justice and protection. These movements, however, have not resulted in dramatic changes in public policy or corporate accountability toward the socially marginalized and poor. Incidents of state and corporate-sponsored environmental degradation and environmental racism continue to cripple the lives of an ever-increasing number of people nationally and internationally today. In this class, we will learn about, and confront, this disheartening reality head on. Through case studies of mountain top removal in Appalachia, toxic waste in the Arctic, and the Dow chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, we will develop anthropologically-informed understandings of environmental justice, environmental racism, and cultural survival. We will also learn about the struggles for environmental justice in New Jersey through field trips and guest lectures by local activists and leaders. [BI, BSS]
Economics of Climate Change and Peak Oil (Econ 130/ESS 191, sec. 3) - Professor Fred Curtis
Climate change and the burning of fossil fuels that contribute to it is not the only energy challenge to our economy, environment and society. The other is peak oil or oil depletion which will lead to increasing energy costs over time. This course examines climate change and peak oil as inter-connected issues that must be understood and solved together. Proposed solutions to peak oil include turning coal into liquid fuels, an option that increases greenhouse gas emissions. This course considers both problems together as well as technological and policy alternatives, with a focus on their impacts on the economy and society. We will also discuss the impact of both on globalization and consumption and relocalization solutions. The course is open to all students having sophomore or higher standing. [BI, BSS]
