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Instructors: Dr. phil. Thorsten Philipp
Event type:
Seminar
Org-unit: Sociology, Politics & Economics
Displayed in timetable as:
Sustainability
Hours per week:
3
Credits:
5,0
Location:
Campus der Zeppelin Universität
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
10 | 35
Priority scheme: Standard-Priorisierung
Course content:
As a comparatively young, but rapidly grown paradigm of politics, sustainability has since long become a central analysis and evaluation pattern for almost all areas of life. Its core questions are as old as humanity itself: Are there limits to humans’ capacity to intervene and change the natural environment? And if so, how do we recognize the boundaries? What if we exceed them?
Although still lacking conceptual concision, the idea of sustainable development still offers anthropological, political and economic guidance in times of crisis, disorientation and uncertainty. Holistic and interdisciplinary in its essence, sustainability permits to structure, systematize and evaluate ethical reflection on environmental conflicts such as biodiversity loss, climate change and resource depletion.
The seminar will provide a basic overview of political ecology by reflecting on core questions of environment conflicts: What is justice? What is development? How to discern borderlines? The participants will get to know key representatives of the ecological movements and analyze prominent theories to assess and rework humankind’s relation to nature. Related concepts and controversies such as resilience, sufficiency, advocacy and post growth will be discussed with regards to their social ethical potentials and limitations.
Course requirements:
| Weekly preparation of readings and class discussion
| Individual seminar presentation and short seminar paper (midterm exam)
| 24 hours take-home exam (endterm exam)
| Individual peer review of an anonymized exam text
Mandatory literature:
Preparatory Literature:
| Grober, Ulrich. Sustainability: A Cultural History. München 2012.
| Radkau, Joachim. The Age of Ecology. Cambridge 2014.
| Sachs, Jeffrey. The Age of Sustainable Development. New York 2015.
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