CLIMATE JUSTICE AND FEMINISM

In this course you will study the global climate emergency as an intersectional civil rights issue. You will read and listen to analyses and arguments made by some of the most prominent feminist scientists, policymakers, and writers; you will have a chance to meet local activists who are building resilient, radically inclusive communities centered on climate justice. Climate change, and its attendant environmental and political disasters, disproportionately affect the most marginalized people: women, girls and femmes; agrarian, rural and Indigenous communities; people of color and LGBTQ+ people, especially when and where they are living in poverty. This course will teach you how to research the climate crisis as it unfolds across the globe, day to day; how to evaluate sources and statements you are finding in the news and on social media; and how to articulate your own concerns in a variety of media for different audiences. The climate emergency is a complex, multilayered problem requiring absolutely everyone’s participation in absolutely every conceivable medium. You’ll have many chances this semester to decide where you want to focus your energies: in conventional academic research and writing, in social media communications, in activist community-building, even in art and music.

No exams; papers and projects to be negotiated individually with the instructor.