Sociology 400--Special Topics: Environmental Awareness, Environmental Justice Movement, Anti-Environmentalism

Spring 2006
Hastings
MWF 11:15-12:05pm
HSS 57

The Office of Disability Services requires that the following be added to the course syllabus.

"If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a documented disability or if you have emergency information to share. Please contact the Office of Disability Services at Hoskins Library at 974-6087. This (action) sic will ensure that you are properly registered for services."

My office is 907 McClung. Office hours are from 1:30 P.M. to 3:00 P.M. and by appointment. Home phone is 690-4167, please do not call after 9:00 P.M. Office phone is 974-7019. Use voice mail or email to leave messages. I regularly check and return calls.





Course Objectives
We will explore three sets of topics of environmental awareness, environmental justice movement, and anti-environmentalism.

  • First, we sketch some of the beliefs on the relationships between the gods, nature, and people that inform environmental awareness in western culture. We also look at environmental problems common to many civilizations, again focusing on the Greek, Roman, Medieval, and Modern experiences.
  • Greeks - Environmental problems. Ecological principles noted by Greek philosophers. Environmental influences. Vicinal isolation.
  • Romans - Pax Romana (professional army, colonization urban outposts, and trade). Standardized money. Roman law, especially Justinian codes. Bureaucratic administration. Ediles responsible for addressing problems associated with agricultural production, trade, and extractive industries, as well as congestion and stench of urban life--building codes, water and land use, sanitation, baths, sewers, street cleaning, odor, and noise.
  • Medieval - Many of the environmental problems associated agricultural and non-agricultural production technologies as well as and problems of urban life noted in the Roman experience and their proposed solutions contained in the Justinian codes are replicated in the Medieval period.
  • Modern. De ja vu all over again, only bigger and more toxic.
  • Second, we review the emergence of environmental activism looking at various types of environmental actions then examine in more detail growth of the environmental justice movement.
  • Third, we discuss anti-environmentalism as the corporate response to environmental activism.


Assignments

  • Readings You are expected to become familiar with the materials in each section of the syllabus. Readings are either are required or suggested. If you are already familiar with a topic and aware of the arguments, then move on to another topic with which your are unfamiliar.
  • Class participation You may have either print or electronic sources that you found particularly informative. Please share them, so we can add them to the syllabus.


Required Texts

Hughes, J. Donald. 1993. Pan's Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.GE160.G8H84 (Available in paperback edition 1996 from Johns Hopkins Press for $19.95.)(Hereafter referred to as Hughes.)

Robinson, O. F. 1992. Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration. London: Routledge. HT169.R7R63

Zupko, Ronald E. and Robert A. Laures. 1996. Straws in the Wind: Medieval Urban Environmental Law: The Case of Northern Italy. Boulder. CO: Westview Press.

Gimpel, Jean. 1976. The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. HC41.G5

Andrews, Richard N. L. 1999. Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmental Policy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. GE180.A53

Cole, Luke W. and Sheila R. Foster. 2001. From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement. New York: New York University Press. GE180.C65

Course Requirements

  • If you are a graduate student please see me so that you can register for this course to obtain proper graduate credit.

  • You will be evaluated on class participation, discussion, and suggestions of sources as possible additions to the syllabus.(10%)

  • After completing each of the three sections of the course a set of assignments will be due. (30% each set)


I. Environmental Awareness

(On Reserve-GRADUATE STUDENTS ONLY) Glacken, Clarence J. 1967.Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.GF31.G6

(On Reserve) Hughes, J. Donald. 1993. Pan's Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. (Hereafter referred to as Hughes.)

See Review of Hughes by John McMahon in Bryn Mawr Classical Review

God(s) relationship with Nature and Man. Man's relationship with Nature and God(s). (Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews) Chaos, creation stories, animism, polytheism, monotheism, deism, theism.

Lecture 1-Man's relationship with nature and the god(s)

Hughes. Chapter 4. "Concepts of the Natural World." pp. 45-72.

Nature as ordered.

Greek - Gods as creator and designer of nature. Nature as ordered for use by god(s) and by man. Man as manipulator of environment.

Lecture 2- Nature's order as knowable

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS COMMON TO MANY CIVILIZATIONS

Hughes. Chapter 3. "Ecological Crises in Earlier Societies." pp. 24-44.

(On Reserve) Ponting, Clive. 1991. A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations . New York: St. Martin's Press.GF75.P66 (Skim as needed)