Beyond Growth: Agrarian Visions
CHUM 388
Spring 2025
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
ENVS 388, COL 387 |
The era of endless growth has reached a point of crisis. In the face of climate catastrophe and widening inequality, of the proliferation of pointless work and spiraling burnout, it has become increasingly common to question the idea that human progress comprises ever-increasing levels of production and consumption. And yet in spite of a slew of attempts to transform the situation, from the Occupy movement to the recent mainstreaming of degrowth economics, it seems that things are only intensifying. How did we come to inhabit this world in which labor and economic growth are seen as ends in themselves? And how might we begin not just to refuse such understandings of labor and growth, but to imagine different forms that they might take? In this course we will confront these questions, exploring the relationship between labor, production, and human flourishing. We will begin by studying foundational articulations of this relationship from thinkers like Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Hannah Arendt, looking as well at the unique place that agricultural production, cultivation, has been understood to occupy therein. We will then turn to the agrarian realm as a particularly potent site from which to trouble and extend our conceptions of labor and growth, examining visions of spiritual labor, anticolonial resistance, and more-than-human entanglement in theoretical and literary texts from Leo Tolstoy, M.K. Gandhi, Mahasweta Devi, J.M. Coetzee, and others. Through our readings and discussions, we will learn to identify and critique the normative claims on which our current energy-intensive, exhaustion-inducting circumstances are based. At the same time, we will cultivate the skills required to seek out and imagine alternative forms of work, community, and the good life. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA CHUM |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (CSCT)(ENVS-MN)(ENVS) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
:
Max Weber, THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM (SELECTIONS)
Karl Marx, ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL MANUSCRIPTS (SELECTIONS)
Hannah Arendt, THE HUMAN CONDITION (SELECTIONS)
Wendell Berry, THE UNSETTLING OF AMERICA (SELECTIONS)
Timofei Bondarev THE TRIUMPH OF THE FARMER OR INDUSTRY AND PARASITISM (INCLUDING INTRODUCTION BY LEO TOLSTOY)
Masanobu Fukuoka, THE ONE-STRAW REVOLUTION
Patrick Chamoiseau, SLAVE OLD MAN
J.M. Coetzee, LIFE AND TIMES OF MICHAEL K
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Examinations and Assignments:
Weekly blog posts, participation, one presentation, two essays (midterm 6-8 pgs, final 8-10 pgs) |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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| Instructor(s): Choudhury,Devin Prakash Times: ...W... 07:10PM-10:00PM; Location: FISK412; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 8 | JR major: 7 | | |
| Seats Available: 4 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 0 | JR non-major: 0 | SO: 0 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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