Curricular Categories

Political and Economic (EC 620)

Seminars in this curricular category:

• Provide analytical frameworks for understanding the role of political and economic institutions, discourses, organizations, and movements;
• Study competing normative arguments about the role played by the state, markets, democracy, liberalism, globalization, technology, and participation;
• Cultivate recognition of diverse forms of power;
• Critically examine strategies, obstacles, and opportunities for change.

Topics may include:

• Political theory (liberalism, democracy, justice, property rights)
• Environmentalism
• Environmental policy
• Environmental security
• National and international environmental governance
• Environmental politics
• Conflict resolution
• Grassroots and transnational social justice movements
• International development

Sample Course Titles:

• EC 620 Political Ecology
• EC 620 Politics of Sustainability
• EC 620 Environmental (In)Securities
• EC 620 Globalism, Capitalism, and the Environment

Socio-Cultural: Race, Class, Gender, and Place (EC 630)

Seminars in this curricular category:

• Provide an understanding of the categories of race/ethnicity, class, gender, and place, including their social construction and varied intersections;
• Explore the role of culture and its production/reproduction;
• Cultivate critical reflexivity and a willingness to entertain multiple epistemologies and to explore other subjectivities/emic perspectives;
• Explore historical processes behind and the global dimensions of contemporary issues;
• Study how environmental perceptions and values are produced, reproduced, and changed by culture.

Topics may include:

• Race, gender, and the environment
• International development and post-development
• Rural communities and natural resources
• Subaltern studies
• Globalization
• Community formation
• Social movement theory
• Environmental health

Sample Course Titles:

• EC 630 Community and Place
• EC 630 Klamath River Issues
• EC 630 Natural Resource Use and Restoration in the Mattole Basin
• SOC 665 Community, Ecology and Social Action
• PSYCH 680 Social Influences and the Environment

Environmental

Seminars in this curricular category:

• Provide a basic understanding of ecological system function as key to planetary life support systems;
• Focus on human-environment interactions;
• Explore analytical and/or applied methods associated with socio-ecological adaptation and resilience to dynamic change in ecological systems.

Topics may include:

• Natural resource management
• Energy use and conservation
• Valuation and use of ecosystem services
• Biodiversity and conservation
• Adaptations to climate change

Sample Course Titles:

• EC 640 Ecosystems and Society
• EC 640 Conservation Ecology and Society