Rhode Island College English course to teach students about ‘eco-Marxism’
Eco-Marxism asserts that Marxist thought is the solution to the degradation of the environment by capitalism.
The course is the latest example Campus Reform has found of “eco-Marxism” being taught on campus.
Rhode Island College will offer English students a chance to study “eco-Marxism” in a course purporting to combine literature and “ecocriticism.”
As a theory, eco-Marxism asserts that Marxist thought is the solution to the degradation of the environment by capitalism.
[RELATED: UC Boulder ‘eco-feminism’ program draws dozens of students]
“Along the way we will pay close attention to two subfields of ecocriticism: ‘social ecology’ and ‘eco-Marxism,’” the course description for “Literature, Environment, and Ecocriticism” says.
“Our overarching goal is to learn about and apply the analytical and interpretive tools of ecocriticism in order to write about cultural texts of all kinds.”
“We will explore the intersection of environmental studies and the humanities from a perspective informed by environmental science, cultural narrative, history, and ideology, including the very latest data regarding key environmental benchmarks,” it continues.
The course page for Rhode Island College lists professor Joseph Zornado as the teaching faculty member, whose research interests include “American Literature, Children’s Culture, Fantasy and the Lacanian subject, Zen and the Literary Experience, Environmental Studies, Literature, and Ecocriticism.” One of his books is called “Critical Thinking: Developing the Intellectual Tools for Social Justice.”
Campus Reform has reported previous examples of colleges and universities teaching students “eco-Marxism.”
[RELATED: Colorado college speaker advocates ‘legal rights’ for Mother Earth]
This past fall, the New School in New York offered a course titled “Critical Political Ecology/Economy: From Extraction Regeneration” that uses “(eco)feminism” and “(eco)Marxism” as “viable alternatives” to the current political system.
The “living history” course seeks to “substantiate viable alternatives and transformative paradigms like (eco)feminism,(eco)Marxism; postcolonialism, decolonialism, Indigenous, post-development, degrowth, post-extractivism, and environmental/climate justice.”
Meanwhile, other college courses use Marxism for other purposes. This coming semester, UMass Amherst students can take a course in “Transgender Marxism.”
“We will address classic areas in Marxist thought — such as production/reproduction, capital accumulation, extractivism, the commodity-form, and fetishism — as well as more vanguard areas of the field - such as metabolic rift theory and eco-socialism - alongside major LGBTQIA movements, movements for racial justice, sex workers’ rights, industrial labor and workplace struggles, health activism, land struggles, mutual aid, and immigrant rights,” the course description says.
Campus Reform contacted Rhode Island College for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.
