Environment and Society

This course is an introductory survey of the environmental humanities and social sciences. It draws on scholarship and methods in environmental history, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and literary studies to address the causes, contexts, and consequences of domestication, urbanization, industrialization, pollution, extinction, climate change, and other subjects--all of which are simultaneously the product of long, complex histories and areas of recent, dramatic, and sometimes even catastrophic change. Readings in historical sources are combined with present-day case studies, including some focused on the Philadelphia region.