Critical, data-driven analysis of specific issues or general problems of how people interact with environmental and resource systems. This course will teach students to build, estimate and interpret models that describe phenomena in the broad area of energy and environmental decision-making. More than one section may be given each semester on different topics depending on faculty and student interest.

Humans’ relationship with the environment—e.g., soil, land, water, forests, air, food, animals, aquatic species, microorganisms, toxic chemicals, and built landscapes—is complex, multidimensional, and situated in particular historical and geographical contexts. Gender, as a constitutive element of social relationships and a key signifier of power, is fundamental to understanding how “nature” and the environment is produced and experienced; how environmental knowledges are shaped, maintained, and valued over time and space; how access to material resources is negotiated, managed, and controlled; and how the impacts of, and responses to, environmental degradation are differentiated and unevenly distributed. However, gender is not a fixed or singular category. It is always already articulated with other forms of power and difference, including race, class, ethnicity, age, sexuality, and dis/ability among others. The objective of this course, then, is to explore the myriad of ways in which human-environment relationships are shaped by gender and intersectional power relations across local and global scales. During the first six weeks of the semester, students will become familiar with key concepts and theoretical approaches to studying the gender-environment nexus. In the following six weeks, students will apply the knowledge gained in previous weeks to several thematic issues, such as resource politics (with a focus on land, food, and water), environmental toxins, reproductive justice, and climate change.

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