GEOB 504A Perspectives on the Anthropocene

Description

This course is restricted to graduate students. 

This graduate seminar will develop an intersectional, critical approach to the Anthropocene as a proposed geologic epoch but also an integrative lens through which to study contemporary human-environment relations. What is at stake is beyond each of us individually and, therefore, calls for interdisciplinary understanding, new forms of pedagogy, and deep societal mutations.

This seminar will offer tools to ask hard and often neglected questions about who embodies the anthropos and to think carefully, collaboratively, and critically about the concepts and methods of analysis deployed in various disciplinary spheres. Given that the issues facing us in this era of rapid global change are inherently interdisciplinary in nature, we aim to foster collaborative scholarship between students (and faculty) from a variety of scholarly backgrounds.

Through the joint production of a new digital and public-facing output, you will also engage in the practice of open science. This is aimed at generating the kinds of researcher-practitioners needed to collectively lead society towards sustainable, resilient, and just futures.

Learning Goals

1. Be able to analyze and reflect on the Anthropocene from different standpoints and disciplines
2. Understand the varied ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions that underpin Anthropocene-inspired inquiry, your own included
3. Improve one’s capacity for transdisciplinary, collaborative, and reflexive scholarship at both the intra and interpersonal level
4. Develop skills for communicating beyond the academy; understand the role of knowledge mobilization and public scholarship in Anthropocene research