We’ve read (and seen) quite an array of things relating to sustainability this semester. I’d like you to write a retrospective, no longer than 5 pages, double spaced, in which you “take stock” of what you’ve learned along the way. Proceeding by unit, from “Old Wine, New Wineskins” through to “How We Might Live,” what arguments or topics stuck out and stick with you? (Be sure to treat at least one item from each unit. Feel free to develop points you made in your discussion posts or pursue different ones.) Is it important for the present time to understand how people in the past interacted with and thought about their environments? What new perspectives have you gained on what it means to be “sustainable”? What’s the next step, intellectually, and/or in terms of lifestyle or collective action?
Syllabus:
This course is a foray into the genealogy of ideas. It traces the trajectory of modern notions of ecological and socio-economic sustainability back through time. Through selected readings spanning over two thousand years, you will see old ideas and precepts cropping up again and again over the course of history, up to and including the present day.
We will be investigating parallels between unlikely comparands. This is purposeful. To be able to see similarities between ostensibly dissimilar things is the mark of real insight and intelligence. To recognize differences and to make distinctions is also an important part of critical thinking. We’ll be engaged in both activities. Along the way you will grapple with conceptual and philosophical aspects of sustainability and with sustainable living itself (and the inevitable trade-offs and contradictions therein) with reference to your own experience. Ultimately, this is a course about how to think and how to live.
