Courses Related to Environmental Humanities and Social Justice (Spring 2025)

WGSS 220 – SUSTAINABLIITY, GENDER, GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
TuTh 10-11:15am

Gender, the environment and sustainability are key terms in debates about economic globalization and social justice. While not new, they are reemerging in the as part of the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. This course will introduce students to the perceived and existing links between women, gender, and the global environment as they appear in 21st century discussions about sustainable development. We will explore these debates by focusing on questions such as:

• When did the environment and sustainability emerge as key issues on global agendas?
• What are their connections to economic globalization? To colonialism and capitalism?
• How did women and gender become part of these discussions?
• How did governments, multilateral institutions (e.g. the United Nations, the World Bank), and development policies target third world women? Was it to meet their needs and address gender equality? Or was it for more efficient and effective environmental and sustainability outcomes?
• What were the results and implications of these interventions?
• In what guise are these interventions reemerging in the context of the ?green? economy, food security, and population and reproductive rights?
• How have women across the world organized to address concerns about the environment and sustainability?
• How have feminists engaged with issues of gender, the global environment and sustainability?

The primary goal of this class is to familiarize students with these debates in a way that will enable them to participate in 21st century discussions in informed, critical and self-reflexive ways. (Gen. Ed. SB, DG)