Jonathan Masin-Peters (Social Students)
First-Year Seminar 73N | 4 Credits (Fall 2024) | CANVAS SITE
Thursday, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
You are part of the so-called “pivotal generation” for preventing the worst effects of climate change. While global carbon emissions continue to rise yearly, there remains a small window of time for action. What options are available to you for responding to climate change and the unequal burdens it creates? This discussion-based seminar will introduce you to six prominent modes of action for responding to climate change: sustainable consumption, environmental art & aesthetics, climate litigation, green industrial policy, climate protest, and prefigurative eco-experiments. We will learn about these forms of action primarily through political theory, philosophy, and ethnography, but we will supplement this literature with films, museum exhibits, legal and policy documents, and your own journals on everyday consumption patterns. In addition to introducing you to the substantive content and debates around these forms of action, you will engage in assignments that enable you to practice the forms of writing most associated with these action orientations. For the unit on climate litigation, for example, you will have the chance to draft an amicus brief, while the unit on climate protest will have you producing a political pamphlet. Your final paper will have you producing an argumentative essay reflecting on which modes of action you take to be most salient for addressing the climate crisis. You can expect to build your conceptual vocabulary, learn the strengths and limits of each form of action, and understand how to formulate compelling written and visual modes of communication.