Courses Related to Societal, Cultural, and Social Aspects of Sustainability
Course offerings are subject to change. We will try to keep this list updated but please verify information in the Undergraduate Catalog if you see a course that is of interest.
Courses listed on this page focus on aspects of sustainability relating to human society, culture, and social behaviors. Courses may put more emphasis on the environmental or human aspects of sustainability issues and actions. These courses represent a wide array of topics ranging from the interactions between biophysical systems and the economy to both national and global environmental justice movements.
Anthropology
ANT 225 – Climate Change, Societies, and Cultures
Surveys the human dimensions of climate change from a cultural perspective, the interactions among societies, cultures, and climate change. Reviews climate-change futures and their human implications around the world, drivers of climate change, and technological, social, and cultural mitigation and adaptation strategies. Perspective throughout is universalistic (all human societies, past and present) and holistic (all realms of thought and behavior, though with particular emphasis on social, political, and cultural dimensions).
ANT 235 – Cultural Perceptions of Nature
Examines the concept of nature in a variety of cultural contexts. Emphasis is on the development of contemporary views and their impacts on environmental management.
ANT 250 – Conservation Anthropology: The Socio-Cultural Dimension of Environmental Issues
Conservation is fundamentally a socio-cultural problem. Examines the different types of human/nature relationships that emerge across various cultural, environmental, socio-economic, and political contexts. Through a comparative approach, this course is designed to illustrate how culture is an important variable when creating viable conservation strategies. Themes covered in class include protected areas, indigenous and traditional knowledge, resource management, market-based conservation, environmental economics, and political ecology. Case studies: United States, Africa, Australia, Latin America, and Papua New Guinea.
ANT 270 – Environmental Justice Movements in the United States
Examines how poor and racialized communities have responded to the incidence, causes, and effects of environmental racism and injustice. Special attention will be given to how critiques offered by these communities challenge the knowledge and procedural forms of justice embedded in environmental policy and democracy in the United States. Case studies will be drawn from readings on African-American, European-Americans, Chicano and Latino Americans, and Native Americans.
ANT 464 – Ecological Anthropology
Comparative study of human populations in ecosystems. Topics include the adaptive nature of culture, implications of the ecological approach for anthropological theory, sociocultural evolution and change, and contemporary problems. Case studies from simple and complex societies. ANT 464 and 564 cannot both be taken for degree credit.
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
EES 351 – Energy, Wealth, and Power: a Biophysical Systems View of Nature and Society
Within the biophysical economics paradigm, energy is the unseen arbiter that drives ecological and economic processes. Biophysical systems of nature and human society are organized according to seemingly universal laws that govern the concentration, conversion, and degradation of energy over space and time. These laws explain historic patterns in ecological and societal evolution, and provide a framework for responding to planetary crises of climate change, peak energy, and unpayable ecological debt. Students will apply biophysical systems principles of energy return on investment (EROI), energy hierarchy, transformity, embodied energy (eMergy), and maximum eMpower to better understand the past and better prepare for the future in a rapidly-degrading ecosphere. Students will read historic and current literature, participate in (and sometimes lead) interactive class discussions, and complete individual- or group-projects.
Food Science and Nutrition
FSN 270 – World Food and Culture
An investigation of the status of the world food supply, food in the developing world, and food in the developed world, with emphasis on sustainability of food systems, as well as an exploration of food selection and preparation in a cultural context.
Maine Studies
MES 301 – Rachel Carson, Maine, and the Environment
In this course, students will take a chronological approach to the study of Rachel Carson’s life and work, reading her books in the order in which they were written, with attention to the role of “place,” specifically the Maine coast, in fostering her achievement as a nature writer and in shaping her vision as an environmentalist. Some of the questions the course will pose and attempt to answer are: What role did the Maine coast play in enabling Carson to understand the importance of the conservation of “wild” spaces? In what ways did Carson’s experience of the Maine coast contribute to her knowledge and understanding of the sea (a central theme in her work) in all its physical and metaphorical dimensions? And how did Carson’s establishment of a permanent home on the coast of Maine facilitate her development as a science and nature writer?
Peace Studies
PAX 370 – Building Sustainable Communities
Explores the essential ideas and necessary institutions for building sustainable communities including social, cultural and physical environments. Specific examples of sustainable communities and eco-villages worldwide will be highlighted.
PAX 380 – Ecovillages and Ecocities: Models of Global Restoration
This course explores the essential ideas for a transition to an environmental century by investigating global ecovillages and ecocities as guides to sustainable communities.
Philosophy
PHI 345 – Global Justice
A study of moral and political philosophies developed in response to the issues and challenges raised by political, economic, and technological globalization. These include such topics as sovereignty and self-determination, global institutions and democracy, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, poverty and international or global distributive justice, fair trade, intellectual property rights, global environmental justice, domestic institutions and responsibility for global injustice, human rights and cultural diversity, women and global justice, immigration, war, humanitarian intervention and terrorism.
PHI 432 – Environmental Justice
A critical study of historical and multicultural perspectives on environmental justice. This course will focus on environmental intersectionality, the theory that environmental burdens disproportionately affect oppressed social groups. Attention will be given to environmental philosophy, ethics and policy, ranging from local indigenous struggles, to national and global issues.
Plant, Soil, and Environmental Science
PSE 121 – Human Societies, Soil, and Water: The Unbreakable Link
This course considers the soil and water resources upon which human societies depend. Begins with a survey of basic properties and processes important in understanding soil and water resources. Ethical approaches to resource decision-making are introduced and used. Through the use of many case studies and examples, students are encouraged to clarify and develop their own personal values with respect to human use of the environment.
School of Forest Resources
SFR 220 – Environment and Society
Introduces the concepts and principles necessary to understand the connections between human behavior and environmental conditions. The course includes a review of the conservation and environmental movements in the United States, tracing changing American values towards forests and other natural resources over time. Students learn how to critically analyze the social, economic, and environmental aspects of various case studies concerning society-environment connections by evaluating diverse information sources.
SFR 493 – Sustainable Tourism Planning
The course provides a basis for a tourism destination service learning project involving natural and cultural attractions. The project will involve developing, facilitating, evaluating and documenting the tourism destination planning process. Specific topics include tourism potential evaluation, tourism sociocultural and environmental impacts, community-based tourism planning, tourism regional and site planning, and strategic tourism planning. The course requires field trips within and outside of scheduled class periods. (Because of overlap SFR 493 and SFR 593 cannot both be taken for degree credit).
Sociology
SOC 310 – Food Systems and Social Change
This course investigates food systems as social institutions, considering both how they meet human needs and how they reflect and reproduce social and environmental inequalities. It focuses on systemic causes of and responses to food insecurity and malnutrition and considers critiques of food systems developed from perspectives of food democracy, food justice, and food sovereignty. Learning in this course concentrates on understanding historical and social contexts of food systems, exploring values and positions involved in contemporary debates about food systems, and gaining knowledge of food as an arena for practical, change-oriented activism.