Politics
114: THINKING GREEN
Politics,
Ethics,
Political Economy
Spring 2009,
TTh, 4-5:45,
Cowell 134
Instructor:
Ronnie Lipschutz
Office: 234 Crown College
Office
Hours: Tues., 2-3; Wed. 1-2, or by appt.
Phone:
459-3275/e-mail: rlipsch@ucsc.edu
Web
url: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/syllabus.html
(Last
updated on May 29, 2009)
Vincent Van Gogh
What does it mean to “think
Green?” Are Green politics and environmentalism the
same? If
not, how do they differ? What are the philosophical bases of
Green
thought? Were Aristotle and Hobbes closet Greens? Do Green
political parties have any chance of gaining power, or are they doomed
to
opposition? What does it mean to be biocentric? Is
sustainable
development feasible or a fantasy? What do Green political
programs
propose to do? This is a course on Green political thought and
practice.
In it, we shall examine the origins and content of ecological politics,
ethics
and political economy, and ask whether they offer a “realistic”
alternative to
neo-liberalism and other political ideologies.
The workload for the course is
substantial. In addition to intensive reading, students will be
expected
to write four papers of approximately five pages in length.. Part of
the course will consist of lectures,
but
there will be substantial discussion of the materials in class, and
everyone is
expected to contribute to them.
Required
texts
(available at Baytree Books, and on reserve at McHenry)
Warren
Magnusson and Kara Shaw (eds.), A
Political Space—Reading the Global Through Clayoquot Sound
(Minnesota,
2003).
Anna
L. Peterson, Being Human--Ethics,
Environment, and Our Place in the World (UC Press, 2001)
Andrew Dobson, Green Political Thoughts
James Speth, The Bridge at the Edge of the World (Yale
University Press, 2008).
Other highly
recommended books:
Joan
Bennett &
William Chaloupka (eds), In the Nature of
Things (Minnesota, 1993).
Robyn
Eckersley, Environmentalism and Political Theory
(SUNY Press, 1992).
Thom
Kuehls, Beyond Sovereign Territory (U. Minnesota
Press, 1996).
Nicholas
Low and
Brendan Gleeson, Justice, Society and
Nature (Routledge, 1998).
Carolyn
Merchant, The Death of Nature (Harper & Row,
1980).
John
Meyer, Political Nature (MIT Press, 2001).
Karl Polanyi, The Great
Transformation (Beacon, 2001; 2nd ed.)
* Articles marked with an asterisk
can only be accessed through the UCSC Library electronic journals
database, at: http://ucelinks.cdlib.org:8888/sfx_ucsc/a-z/default
Course
schedule
Week 1:
Introduction/indoctrination to the course (overseen by Corina McKendy)
Required
reading:
Robert Harrison, "The Ecstacy
of John Muir," New York
Review of Books 56,
#4 (March 12, 2009), at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Muir.html
Joe Brewer, "Beyond Scarcity: Reinventing Wealth in a Progressive
World," truthout, Feb. 24,
2009, at: http://www.truthout.org/022409A
Ronnie D. Lipschutz,
"Deconstructing Global Environment," ch. 2 in: Global Environmental Politics: Power,
Perspectives and Practice
(Washington,
DC:
CQ Press, 2003), at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/ch2.doc
*Thomas R. Dunlap,
"Environmentalism, a Secular Faith," Environmental
Values 15 (2006): 321-30, at: http://docserver.ingentaconnect.com/deliver/connect/whp/09632719/v15n3/s7.pdf?expires=1237331228&id=49491133&titleid=1473&accname=
University+of+California%2C+Santa+Cruz&checksum=E70F7672345A2CF16AB2B1295B844E5E
Other recommended resources:
R.
Bryant and S. Bailey, Third
World
Political Ecology
(Routledge, 1997)..
Neil
Carter, The Politics of
the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy
(Cambridge, 2001).
William Cronon (ed), Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human
Place
in Nature (Norton, 1996).
Andrew Dobson, Green
Political Thought (Routledge, 2000, 3rd ed.).
David
Goldblatt, Social Theory and the
Environment (Polity, 1996).
Ramachandra Guha and Juan
Martinez-Alier, Varieties of
Environmentalism. Essays North and South (Earthscan, 1997)..
Mark
Sagoff, The Economy of
the Earth
(Cambridge,1988)..
Week 2: The
Green "problematic"
Required
reading: Peterson,
ch. 1-3; Speth, ch.
1-3; Dobson, ch. 1
*Thomas
Princen, "Notes on the Theorizing of Global Environmental
Politics," Global Environmental
Politics 8, #1 (Feb. 2008): 1-5, at:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/global_environmental_politics/v008/8.1princen.pdf
* Deborah Fleming, "Preservation and Freedom," Organization & Environment 20,
#1 (march 2007): 106-9, at: http://oae.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/20/1/106.pdf
Lecture 1 (4/7) slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.1.pdf
Lecture 2 (4/9) slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.2.pdf
First writing assignment: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Assignment%201.pdf
Other recommended
resources:
David
Arnold, The Problem
of Nature: Environment, Culture, and European Expansion (Blackwell,
1996).
Neil Evernden, The Social Creation of Nature (Johns
Hopkins, 1992).
Barbara Noske, Humans and Other Animals (1989, London:
Pluto Press).
George Robinson et al, Future Natural: Nature, Science and
Culture
(Routledge, 1996).
I.G. Simmons, Interpreting
Nature (Routledge, 1993).
Kate Soper, What is Nature? Culture, Politics
and the
Non-Human (Blackwell,
1995)
Week 3:
The Green State
Required
reading: Magnusson
and Shaw, pp. 1-66; *Read the articles in the special issue of The Good Society 17, #2 (2008), on
"Green Constitutionalism," at:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/good_society/toc/gso.17.2.html
Lecture 3 (4/14) slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.3.pdf
Lecture 4 (4/16) slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.4.pdf
Other recommended resources:
Robyn
Eckersley, The Green State—Rethinking
Democracy and Sovereignty (MIT Press, 2004).
Steven
Bernstein, The Compromise of Liberal Environmentalism
(Columbia, 2001).
Avner
de-Shalit, Why
Posterity Matters (Routledge, 1995).
Mark Diesendorf and Clive
Hamilton (eds), Human Ecology, Human
Economy (Allen and Unwin, 1997).
Terry Anderson and Donald
Leal, Free Market Environmentalism (Westview, 1991).
William Ophuls and A Stephan
Boyan, An Inquiry into the Human Prospect (Norton, 1991, 3rd
ed.).
Charles Rubin, The Green
Crusade (Free Press,
1995).
Week 4:
The Green Economy & Green Consumption
Required
reading: Speth,
ch 4-9; Magnusson
and Shaw, pp. 121-77, 199-236; ;
*Arthur P.J. Mol, "Ecological
Modernization and the Global Economy," Global
Environmental Politics 2,
No. 2 (May 2002): 92-115, at: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/15263800260047844;
*John Barry, "Towards a model of green political economy," International Journal of Green Economics
1, #3/4 (2007): 446-64, at: http://inderscience.metapress.com/media/gmuaadtuxq0uxv6qnq96/contributions/5/j/0/8/5j082230278u213u.pdf;
Alex
Williams, "Buying into the Green Movement," The New York Times, July 1, 2007,
at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/fashion/01green.html
*Look at the special issue of the Journal
of Business Research on "Anti-consumption," at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01482963
Lecture 5 (4/21) slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.5.pdf
Lecture 6 (4/23) slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.6.pdf
Other recommended
resources:
Herman Daly and
John Cobb, For the Common Good
(Beacon, 1989).
Joel Kovel, The Enemy of Nature
(Fernwood/Zed, 2002).
Timothy Luke, Capitalism, Democracy,
and Ecology (University of Illinois, 1999).
Lester Milbrath, Envisioning a
Sustainable Society (SUNY Press, 1989).
Aseem Prakash, Greening the Firm (Cambridge,
2000).
Miriam Kennet & Volker Heinemann, "Green Economics," International journal of Green Economics
1, #1/2 (2006):68-102.
Week 5: Green
Philosophies and Ethics
Required
reading:
Peterson, ch. 7; Dobson, ch. 2.;
"Environmental Ethics," Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, at:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/
;
*Alan Carter, "Deep Ecology or Social Ecology?" The Heythrop Journal 36 (1995):
328-50, at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119236553/PDFSTART
Lecture 7 (4/28) slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.7.pdf
Other recommended resources:
Mary E. Clark, Ariadne's Thread--The Search for New Modes
of Thinking (St. Martin's, 1989).
Amdrew Light and Avner de-Shalit (eds.), Moral and Political Reasoning in
Environmental Practice (MIT Press, 2003).
Nicholas Low (ed.), Global Ethics
and Environment (Routledge, 1999).
Nicholas Low and Brendan Gleeson, Justice,
Society and Nature (Routledge, 1998).
Thomas R. Dunlap, Faith in Nature (University
of Washington Press, 2004).
Week 6:
Environmental Justice
Required reading:
*Robert J. Brulle and David
N. Pellow, "Environmental Justice: Human Health and Environmental
Inequalities," Annual Review
of Public Health 27 (2006): 103-124,
at: http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.27.021405.102124
Lecture 8
(5/5-7): http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.8.pdf
Week 7:
Ecofeminism
and other green politics
Required
reading:
Peterson, ch. 6; Dobson, ch. 5;
*Mary Mellor, "Ecofeminist political
economy," International Journal of
Green Economics 1, #1/2 (2006): 139-50, at:
http://www.environmental-expert.com/Files%5C6471%5Carticles%5C6530%5Cf411101712593268.pdf
Lecture 9 (5/12-14):
http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.9.pdf
Other recommended
resources:
Carolyn
Merchant, The Death of
Nature (Harper & Row,
1980).
Joni
Seager, Earth Follies (Routledge, 1993).
Ariel
Salleh, Ecofeminism as Politics (Zed, 1997)
Catriona
Sandilands, The Good-Natured Feminist (Minnesota, 1999).
Vandana
Shiva and Maria Mies, Ecofeminism (Fernwood,
1993).
Karen J. Warren, Ecofeminist
Philosophy : A Western Perspective On What It Is And Why It Matters (Rowman &
Littlefield, 2000).
Week 8:
Sustainability: Hope or hype?
Required
reading: Dobson,
ch. 3, Speth, Conclusion;
*Bill Hopwood, et. al, "Sustainable
Development: Mapping Different Approaches," Sustainable Development 13 (2005):
38-52, at:
http://www.geography.ryerson.ca/jmaurer/030_108art/030_108SustDevel.pdf
Lecture 10 (5/19): http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.10.pdf
Lecture 11 (5/21): http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.11.pdf
Other recommended
resources:
Ulrich
Beck, Ecological
Politics in an Age of Risk
(Polity, 1995)..
Ronnie
Lipschutz, Global Civil
Society and Global Environmental Governance
(SUNY Press, 1996).
Michael
Redclift and Ted Benton (eds.), Social Theory and the Global
Environment
(Routledge, 1994).
Week 9:
Tragedy/Comedy of the commons
Required
reading: Peterson,
ch.
4-5, 8-9; Magnusson
and
Shaw, pp. 67-90, 113-20, 179-98,
237-86;
*Hazel
Henderson, "Growing the Green Economy--Globally," International
Journal of Green Economics 1, #3/4 (2007): 276-98, at:
http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Henderson.pdf
Lecture 12 (5/26): http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol114/Pol114.S09.12.pdf
Other recommended resources:
Jane
Bennett and William
Chaloupka, In the Nature of Things: Language,
Politics and the Environment
(Minnesota, 1993).
Robert
Brulle, Agency, Democracy, and Nature
(MIT Press, 2000).
John
Dryzek, The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses
(Oxford,
1997).
Kerry Whiteside, Divided
Natures—French Contributions to Political Ecology (MIT Press, 2002)
Ted
Benton (ed) The Greening of Marxism
(Guildford, 1996).
Murray
Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom (Black Rose Books, 1991).
Andre
Gorz, Ecology as Politics (Pluto,
1980).
David
Pepper, Ecosocialism (Routledge, 1993).
James
O’Connor, Natural Causes (Guilford, 1998).
Week
10: Critiques and attacks
Required
reading: Michael Shellenberger and Ted
Nordhaus, "The Death of Environmentalism," at: http://www.thebreakthrough.org/images/Death_of_Environmentalism.pdf
Cotopaxi, Frederic
Church (1862)
Spring 2009,
TTh, 4-5:45,
Cowell 134