Nature, Sustainability, and the Earth courses
First-Year Seminar courses
* course also fulfills an Indianapolis Community Requirement credit
† course offered as an Honors First-Year Seminar option
Instructor
William Watts
Course Description
This course will focus on two interconnected problems we face in both the United States and in the broader world today. The first is political: How can we navigate an increasingly fractious political divide, which some informed commentators warn is creating the conditions for civil war? The second is environmental: How can we, in this fractious environment, muster the political will to address the mounting environmental and social problems that follow from climate change? Our approach to these problems will both theoretical and practical. That is to say, we will read books and articles and watch movies that deal with politics and the environment. But we will also consider how we, as engaged citizens, might take practical steps in our daily lives to improve the physical and political environment we inhabit.
Instructor
Angela Hofstetter
Course Description
From drawings of horses, stags, and bulls on the caves of Lascaux to enduring classics like The Call of the Wild and Black Beauty, animals have captured our imagination as symbols, companions, workers, food, and fellow warriors: our path to modernity tells the tale of a relationship paradoxically fraught with violence and affection. This interdisciplinary First Year Seminar examines how the burgeoning fields of anthropology, psychology, and criminology converged with biology, zoology, and economics in taxonomies of class, race, sex, and gender whose legacy still governs our conversations about which lives matter. Most importantly, we will discover how Writing for Wellness (W4W) helps us grapple with making meaning of nature, nurture, and justice in the new millennium.
This course is offered as an Honors First Year Seminar course.