PECO 445 Political Ecology II: Advanced Readings
This course is a seminar covering advanced readings in the interdisciplinary field of political ecology. After surveying the core theoretical schools driving debates in the field - ecological modernization, ecological hybridity, social ecology, and metabolic rift theory - students will engage in deep readings of cutting-edge major works. We will begin these readings from the standpoint that the scientific knowledge, technologies, and cultural practices that mediate nature-society relations exist in political contexts where state and corporate actors exercise tremendous power over the trajectory of economic development. In this light, a core goal of this course is to explain how capital accumulation shapes nature-society relations from historical and theoretical perspectives. Our advanced readings will include a methods module on ecological dialectics which serves as the basis for this course's signature assignment - a research paper in political ecology. An overarching goal of this course is to prepare students for graduate-level work in the environmental social sciences.