Princeton 'climate justice' course applies 'gender, race, and sexualities' to 'environmental issues'
Students will learn about topics such as “violent settler colonialism” and “environmental racism.'
Princeton University unveiled several new courses on “environmental justice” for Fall 2023.
Students will learn about topics such as “violent settler colonialism” and “environmental racism” and apply “gender, race, and sexualities” to “environmental issues.”
Students interested in film and photography can enroll in “Coming to Our Senses: Climate Justice - Climate Change in Film, Photography and Popular Culture.” The “immersive, multimedia” course will cover “climate crises,” “violent settler colonialism,” and “explore the vital ways environmental issues intersect with gender, race, and sexualities.”
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Anne McClintock, the course’s instructor, is the A. Barton Hepburn Professor in Gender and Sexuality Studies. She will require students to read books like Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor by Rob Nixon. The book classifies “violence wrought by climate change” as “slow violence” against disempowered members of society.
The class “Environmental and Climate Justice” also requires students to read Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor in addition to Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality and Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger. Dumping in Dixie links “environmentalism with issues of social justice” by examining “environmental racism.” Similarly, Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger posits that “environmental injustices” appear across racial and socio-economic lines.
Nathan Jessee, a postdoctoral fellow and instructor of the course, aims to focus on “the intersection of environmental and climate justice.” In his bio on X (formerly Twitter), he “studies resettlement and environmental justice” and is writing a book on “colonialism and climate” in Louisiana.
Princeton University also offers “Neoliberal Natures: Society, Justice, and Environmental Futures.” Participants will read Green Wars: Conservation and Decolonization in the Maya Forest, which critiques worldwide conservation efforts that were celebrated for “saving Guatemala’s Maya Forest.” Author Megan Ybarra claims that the projects were rooted in “racialized dispossession” in the context of “a longer history of 200 years of settler colonialism.”
Students more inclined to take engineering classes can take “Designing Sustainable Systems: Beating the Heat of Climate Change with New Building Paradigms.” It is cross listed as an engineering, architecture, energy and environmental course. Forest Meggers, associate professor of architecture, is teaching the course. The professor, whose research interests include renewable energy and sustainable systems, is the co-chair of the Princeton Sustainability Committee.
All individuals named in the article have been contacted for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
