Despite global attempts to establish “green” initiatives by governmental forces, these “solutions” offer little hope for averting the emergency, while often obstructing on-the-ground activist movements pushing for systemic transformation and radical sustainability. As the crisis in capitalist globalization spirals out of control, spawning neofascist movements in its wake, the impediments to solving this inexorable disaster have only been amplified.
With the above characterization in mind, the objective of this seminar is to highlight strategies for building solidarity around environmental concerns inside and outside the classroom space through an interdisciplinary perspective. A particular focus of this seminar will be on understanding how systemic forces have accelerated ecological degradation, and the ways writers, filmmakers, and activists in the last decade engage these issues outside of the paradigms set by mainstream discourse. Some of themes/issues we will address are: climate imperialism and the global South; environmental apartheid and the question of migrant labor; human rights and climate justice; ecological degradation and pandemics; the question of eco-socialism; and climate activism and pedagogical practice.