ENST 200

This course explores the nexus of nature, culture, society and person. Using interdisciplinary approaches from the environmental humanities, we examine tensions and dilemmas running though conservation discourses and contemporary environmental thinking. In order to give historical context to complex human perspectives on the environment, attention is paid to the combined forces of western culture, colonialism, globalization as well as the ways in which contemporary economic order and the modern nation state shape the relationship between humans and the environment. We examine northern and global perspectives, and northern issues of current interest. Selected readings help students develop an appreciation of historic and cultural perspectives as they relate to environmental thought.