New 2018-2019 EVST Courses

August 28, 2018

The Environmental Studies (EVST) department is excited to announce eleven new and newly cross-listed courses for 2018-2019! 

Fall Courses

Environmental Influences on Human, Community and Global Health (EVST 264)

  • Meeting time: T 1:30pm-3:20pm
  • Professor Philip Johnson
  • Will provide students with a broad yet comprehensive overview of environmental health with a focus on its applications
  • Joins the scientific and social sides of managing environmental media
  • Topics include: social factors, hazardous agents, and water, soil, and food quality related to public health  

Earth’s Changing Climate (G&G 120/EVST 125)

  • Meeting time: MWF 11:35am-12:25pm
  • Professor Jeffrey Park
  • SC credit
  • A courseon geologic history and the Earth system to explore contemporary “global warming” 
  • Course goals include: understanding how basic principles of chemistry, physics and biology determine the global environment; become fluent in real-world conversations on climate change; understanding how projections of future climate change are based on knowledge of past Earth climates; and assessing evidence that the sixth mass-extinction will occur during the Anthropocene
  • Prerequisites for the class are high school level science and mathematics

Climate Change & The Humanities (HUMS 228/EVST 228)

  • Meeting time: MW11:35am-12:50pm
  • Professor Katja Lindskog
  • HU credit
  • Will discuss climate change within history, philosophy, literature, language, and art 
  • Will explore the ways in which the causes of climate change are deeply embedded in our everyday life
  • Students will read literary, political, historical, and scientific texts to better understand how humans both depend on, and struggle against, the natural environment in order to survive

Health and Illness in Social Context(SOCY 127/EVST 127) 

  • Meeting time: MW 10:30am-11:20am
  • ProfessorAlka Menon
  • SO credit
  • Provides a broad introduction to the domains of health and illness in the U.S. 
  • Students will analyze how personal health and public health are shaped by social structures, political struggles, expert knowledge, and medical markets
  • Topics include: the cultural and social meanings associated with health and illness; inequalities in health and health care access and provision; controversies surrounding healthcare; medical knowledge production and medical decision-making; and the social institutions of the health care industry

Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration (SOCY 144/EVST 144)

  • Meeting time: MW 2:30pm-3:20pm
  • Professor Grace Kao
  • SO credit
  • Will focus on the theoretical and empirical analyses of race, ethnicity, and immigration
  • Topics include: patterns of educational and labor market outcomes; incarceration; and family formation of whites, blacks (African Americans), Hispanics, and Asian Americans in the United States
  • Discussions include: immigration patterns and how they affect race and ethnic relations; historical processes; and race relations and racial and ethnic differences in outcomes in contemporary U.S. society (post-1960s)

Spring Courses

The History of the Earth from Noah to Darwin (HSHM 479/EVST 368)

  • Meeting time: T 1:30pm-3:20pm
  • Professor Ivano Dal Prete
  • WR and HU credit
  • Will explore the dichotomy between secular science and traditional Christianity in American culture and politics 
  • Will challenge creationism, flood geology, and the history of the Earth and humankind
  • Students will engage with the Earth sciences from before modern geology in order to place these topics into the historical perspective of monotheistic religions and society
  • Topics include: the emergence of young Earth creationism and the intellectual roots of American preadamism (which claims that the black and white races were created at different times)

Food in Literature, Culture, and Science (ENGL 283/EVST 284)

  • Meeting time: Th 1:30pm-3:20pm
  • Professor Wai Chee Dimock
  • WR and HU credit
  • This course explores texts both as works of luminous imagination and as entry points to deeper scientific knowledge, encouraging cross-pollination among disciplines
  • Topics range from the global histories of sugar and salt to the latest research on chicken and antibiotics

American Energy History (HIST 199/EVST 318)

  • Meeting time: TTh 11:35am-12:25pm
  • Professor Paul Sabin
  • HU credit
  • Explores the history of energy in the United States from early hydropower and coal to present-day hydraulic fracturing, deepwater oil, wind, and solar
  • Topics include: energy transitions and technological change; energy and democracy; environmental justice and public health; corporate power and monopoly control; electricity and popular culture; labor struggles; the global quest for oil; changing national energy policies; the climate crisis 

Colonialism Commodoties in Africa (HIST 366/EVST 369)

  • Meeting time: W 1:30pm-3:20pm
  • Professor Robert Harms
  • WR and HU credit
  • Examines historical case studies of several significant global commodities produced in Africa to explore interactions between world market forces and African resources and societies
  • Key commodities: ivory, rubber, cotton, and diamonds 
  • Students will become acquainted with the historical method by developing their own research paper on a commodity using both primary and secondary sources

Archaelogies of Empire (NELC 189/EVST 371)

  • Meeting time: Th 9:25am-11:15am
  • Professor Harvey Weiss
  • HU and SO credit 
  • Focuses on the comparative study of origins, structures, efficiencies, and limitations of imperialism, ancient and modern, in the Old and New Worlds 
  • Examines the contrast between ancient and modern empires from the perspectives of nineteenth- and twentieth-century archaeology and political economy

The City in Modern East Asia (EAST 404/EVST 403)

  • Meeting time: M 3:30pm-5:20pm
  • Professor Michael Thornton
  • HU credit 
  • Studies East Asian cities, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present day, that have become cosmopolitan urban centers in the modern era
  • Topics include: urban politics, including state-society relations; cities as sites of geopolitical and imperial encounters; changes in urban society, including the impact of migration and social conflict; the urban environment, including natural and man-made disasters; urban planning, at the local, national and transnational scale; and ways of visualizing the city