ENV 878a/F&ES 422a/ANTH 409a/EVST 422a () / 2023-2024

Climate and Society: Past to Present

Credits: 3 Fall 2023: Th, 1:30-3:20, Kroon 321

Seminar on the major traditions of thought and debate regarding climate, climate change, and society, drawing largely on the social sciences and humanities. Section I, overview of the course. Section II, disaster: the social origins of disastrous events; and the attribution of societal ‘collapse’ to extreme climatic events. Section III, causality: the revelatory character of climatic perturbation; politics and the history of efforts to control weather/climate; and 19th-20th century theories of environmental determinism. Section IV, history and culture: the ancient tradition of explaining differences among people in terms of differences in climate; and cross-cultural differences in views of climate.  Section V, knowledge: the study of folk knowledge of climate; and local views of climatic perturbation and change. Section VI, politics: knowledge, humor, and symbolism in North-South climate debates. The goal of the course is to examine the embedded historical, cultural, and political drivers of current climate change debates and discourses. This course can be applied towards Yale College distributional requirements in     Social Science and     Writing. The course is open to both graduate and undergraduate students. Enrollment capped.
Enrollment limited to twenty.