ENVS 315
Spring 2015 not offered
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| Certificates: Environmental Studies |
This course is motivated by recent archaeological finds in the Amazon basin and the discovery of a millenially fertile anthropogenic soil, known as Amazonian Dark Earth (ADE). It is motivated as well by the project to recreate this soil in collaboration with contemporary Kichwa indigenous people in the Peruvian High Amazon. The Kichwa reciprocate with the spirits of their land who are kin to them. This leads to an investigation of how and when in the West nature became mechanical and insentient. Historiography on the scientific revolution will help us to understand how and why the modernist separation between the material and the metaphysical/spiritual came about. The course focuses also on a contemporary reading of Neils Bohr's quantum physics and its way of re-opening the possibility of re-entangling matter and spirit. The course concludes with a practical look at the possibility of re-creating ADE with its potential to solve the global warming crisis. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS ENVS |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
Charles Mann 1491: NEW REVELATIONS OF THE AMERICAS BEFORE COLUMBUS; Albert Bates THE BIOCHAR SOLUTION; M. Strathern & E. McCormack NATURE CULTURE AND GENDER; F. Apffel-Marglin SUBVERSIVE SPIRITUALITIES; Karen Barad MEETING THE UNIVERSE HALFWAY; Carolyn Merchant THE DEATH OF NATURE; Silvia Federici CALIBAN AND THE WITCH; S. Shapin & S. Schaffer LEVIATHAN AND THE AIR-PUMP; Richard Lewontin BIOLOGY AS IDEOLOGY; Bruno Latour WE HAVE NEVER BEEN MODERN.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Classroom presentations and final project due at the end of the first day of final exams. |
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