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CS92PROD
Ethics, Ecology, and Moral Change
PHIL 347
Spring 2021
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: ENVS 347

People commonly recognize that in facing global climate crises, we need to change our habits and practices. Yet our activities are bound up with our perceptions and with our embodied experience of value and possibility. This seminar dives into recent attempts to radically rework our ways of understanding and inhabiting the world. As the flip-side of environmental alienation is alienation from our embodiment, our sessions will incorporate movement and other challenges to sedentary classroom habits.

Given an account of thinking and action as always actively embodied and embedded in our surroundings, we will consider the hypothesis that shifts in action emerge together with shifts in perception. Radical accounts of metaphor and its uptake will help us develop accounts of perceptual change. Our readings will follow a variety of metaphorical directions, including animism and animacies, affordance and hyperobject, process, event and intra-action, native and other, inflammation and balance, dwelling and death, consumption and sustainability. How -- and with what risks and unexpected outcomes -- can these patterns of recognition help in orienting us to the challenges of environmental interdependence and volatility?

This course benefits from collaborative visits with philosopher-dancer Jill Sigman, via Wesleyan's Creative Campus Initiative. Sigman will co-shape discussion and activities during at least two of our sessions.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS PHIL
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (ENVS-MN)(ENVS)(PHIL)(PHIL-Philosophy)(PHIL-Social Jus)
Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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