WGS 3000 - Thinking Green: Environmental Justice, Gender, and Animal Rights

Credits: 4

This interdisciplinary course will examine theories and social movements focused on environmental justice, eco- feminism and animal rights. Students will study environmental racism and how pollutants and toxic waste impact the health, lives, and land of economically disadvantaged communities of color, including Native Americans, as well as efforts to change this. The class will examine legal challenges and movements to expose and end cruelty to animals and animal exploitation, and the linkage between thinking green and creating an earth democracy that fosters a more just and healthy environment for all. Students will investigate gender diversity and the impact that environmental degradation has on populations. And they will employ cultural environmental theories to analyze how the environment and the earth is represented and misrepresented in popular culture, literature and art.
Fulfills: SOSC and D in LS Core.