DESCRIPTION

Indigenous knowledges have been traditionally treated as a field of research for anthropologists and as mistaken epistemologies, i.e. un-scientific and irrational folklore. However, within the framework of environmental humanities, current interest in non-anthropocentric approaches, epistemic injustice, and indigenous knowledges, animism has emerged offering a critique of modern epistemology and an alternative to the Western worldview. New animism will be treated here as an alternative (relational) ontology that enables rethinking of the problem of matter and agency, going beyond human exceptionalism and as a (potentially) decolonizing and liberating practice. Bruno Latour’s approach to the figure of Gaia will be considered as an alternative way to look at nature and environment, thus providing the groundwork for collaboration among scientists, theologians, activists, and artists.

This course may be of interest to anthropology, archaeology, history and literature students working in the fields of ecocriticism and the environmental humanities broadly considered and those interested in the Anthropocene, geologic/mineral, bio-, eco- and geosocial collectives, symbiotic life-forms and non-human agencies, as well as in the turn toward the indigenous. Readings will include (among others): Rosi Braidotti, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Nurit Bird-David, Philippe Descola, Donna Haraway, Tim Ingold, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Lynn Margulis, Eduardo Kohn, Bruno Latour, and Kathryn Yusoff.

The course is designed as a research seminar for students interested in theory of the humanities and  social sciences, while simultaneously helping students to develop their individual projects and theses. It also teaches students how to formulate their own interpretative categories and small range theories based on case study analysis. This course will also encourage students to use creative and unconventional methods of research (imagination, creative writing, walking, performances, arts of attentiveness, etc.), when working on papers for other classes and individual projects.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Attendance is mandatory. Students who miss more than one meeting (except for illness or others serious matters) will not be graded. Students are expected to read assigned readings carefully and participate in discussions.

Credits and Grading

• For 3 credits students are expected to read around 80 pages per week, actively participate in the class discussions and prepare chosen (by a student) 4 research assignments. Final research paper is not required. Grading: participation - 70%; research assignments - 30%.
• For 4 credits students are expected to read around 100 pages per week, actively participate in the class discussions and prepare all research assignments. Final research paper is not required. Grading: participation - 60%; research assignments - 40%.
• For 5 credits students are expected to read around 120 pages per week, actively participate in the class discussions, prepare research assignments and write a final research paper. Grading: participation - 40%; research assignments - 20%; final work: 40%.

Final work expectations: on the base of required readings and research assignments, students are asked to create a booklet or fb website that includes concepts, definitions, citations from readings, as well as made/created by them for the course photos, notes, drawings, aphorisms, poems, recordings, video, etc. that would show students’ view on alternative approaches to the environment.

COURSE SCHEDULE

March 30
1. Introduction: “Imagination is more important than knowledge” (Albert Einstein)

Michael Thomas Hayes, Pauline Sameshima, Francene Watson, “Imagination as Method.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods, vol. 14, no. 1, 2015: 36-52.

• Kathryn Yusoff and Jennifer Gabrys, “Climate Change and the Imagination.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, vol. 2, no. 4, 2011: 516-534.
• Michael Shanks,The Archaeological Imagination. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Left Coast Press, 2012 (Introduction and chapt. 4: “The Archaeological Imagination”: 9-42 and 145-149).
• The Neuroscience of Imagination (2017)

Research Assignment: Cite a sentence from one of the above articles that looks like an aphorism to you and reflect in 300 words on the relation between imagination and knowledge.

 

April 6
2. The Gaia Theory

James Lovelock, Gaia, a New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, reissued, with a new preface and corrections, 2000 (especially: “Preface”, chapt. 1: “Introductory”, chapt. 7 “Gaia and Man: The Problem of Pollution”, chapt. 8: “Living with Gaia” and 9: “Epilogue”: vii-xix, 1-11, 100-142).

Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. New York: Basic, 1998 (Prologue, chapt.1: Symbiosis Everywhere, chapt. 6: “Sex Legacy”, chapt. 8: ”Gaia”).

Bruno Latour and Timothy M. Lenton, “Extending the Domain of Freedom, or Why Gaia Is So Hard to Understand.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 45, no. 3, Spring 2019: 659-680.

Bruce Clark, “Rethinking Gaia: Stengers, Latour, Margulis.” Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 34, no. 4, 2017: 3-26.

Luciano Onori, Guido Visconti, “The GAIA Theory: From Lovelock to Margulis. From a Homeostatic to a Cognitive Autopoietic Worldview.” Rendiconti Lincei. Scienze Fisiche e Naturali, vol. 23, 2012: 375–386.

Additional Readings:

• Isabele Stengers,"The Intrusion of Gaia", in her, In Catastrophic Times: Resisting The Coming Barbarism, trans. Andrew Goffey. Open Humanities Press, 2014: 43ff.
• Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan, Slanted Truths. Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis and Evolution. New York: Copernicus, 1997 (part III: Gaia: 127-260).
• Dorian Sagan, “Life on a Margulisian Planet. A Son’s Philosophical Reflection” and Bruce Clarke, “The Planetary Imagination. Gaian Ecologies from Dune to Neuromancer”, in: Earth, Life, and System: Evolution and Ecology on a Gaian Planet, edited by Bruce Clarke. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015: 13-38 and 151-174.
• Bruno Latour, “Gaia, a (finally secular) figure of nature,” in his, Facing Gaia. Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime, trans. Cathy Porter. Polity Press 2017: 75-110.
• Boris Shoshitaishvili, “Is Our Planet Doubly Alive? Gaia, Globalization, and the Anthropocene’s Planetary Superorganisms.” The Anthropocene Review, April 2022 (online first).
• Bradford D. Martin & Ernest Schwab, “Current Usage of Symbiosis and Associated Terminology.” International Journal of Biology, vol. 5, no. 1, 2013: 32-45.
• Vladimir I. Vernadsky, "The Biosphere," in: The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society, and Change, edited by Paul R. Samson and David Pitt. London; New York: Routledge, 1999: 35-38.
• Vaclav Havel, “The New Measure of Man.” The New York Times, July 8, 1994.

Research Assignment: On the base of required readings as well as your own knowledge and using free online word cloud generator, create the Gaia theory word cloud. Using different font’s sizes and shapes try to show hierarchy and relations between various terms.

 

April 13
3. Anthropocentrism: Pros and Cons
Special Guest: Robert Harrison

Lissy Goralnik and Michael Paul Nelson, “Anthropocentrism,” in: Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, vol. 1, edited by Ruth Chadwick. San Diego: Academic Press, 2012: 145–155.

Robert P. Harrison, "Our Animal Hell", The New York Review of Books, January 5, 2015.

Robert P. Harrison, "Anthropos," in his, Juvenescence: A Cultural History of Our Age. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2014: 10-16.

Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman. Polity Press, 2013 (chapter 2: “Post-Anthropocentrism: Life Beyond the Species”: 55-104).

Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Decentering the Human? Or What Remains of Gaja,” in his, The Human Condition in the Anthropocene. The Tanner Lectures in Human Values delivered at Yale University, February 18-19, 2015: 165-188.

Helen Kopnina, Helen, et al. “Anthropocentrism: More than Just a Misunderstood Problem.” The International Journal of Ecopsychology, vol. 31, 2021: 109-127.

Nick Haslam, "Dehumanization: An Integrative Review." Personality and Social Psychology Review, vol. 10, no. 3, 2006: 252-264.

Additional Readings:

• Encyclical letter Laudato si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for our Common Home (III. The Crisis and Effects of Modern Anthropocentrism: 115-122).
• Allen Thompson, “Anthropocentrism: Humanity as Peril and Promise,” in: The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics, edited by Stephen M. Gardiner and Allen Thompson. Oxford University Press, 2015: 1-19.
• Phillip Drake, "Marxism and the Nonhuman Turn: Animating Nonhumans, Exploitation, and Politics with ANT and Animal Studies." Rethinking Marxism, vol. 27, no. 1, 2015: 107-122.
• Ewa Domańska, “Unbinding from Humanity: Nandipha Mntambo's Europa and the Limits of History and Identity.” Journal of the Philosophy of History, vol. 14, 2020: 310–336.
• The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization, edited y Maria Kronfeldner. Routledge, 2021.
• Robert S. Emmett, David E. Nye, The Environmental Humanities: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge Mass., London: MIT Press, 2017.
• The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, edited by Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen, Michelle Niemann. Routledge 2017.
• Ai Hasegawa, I Wanna Deliver A Dolphin (2013)

Research Assignment: Write a short position paper and argue for pro or con anthropocentrism (500 words).

 

April 20
4. Indigenous Worldviews: Living Relationality

Michael A. Hart, "Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge, and Research: The Development of an Indigenous Research Paradigm." Journal of Indigenous Social Development, vol. 1, no. 1, February 2010: 1-16.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions, 2013 (fragments: “The Gift of Strawberries,” “Learning the Grammar of Animacy,” “The Honorable Harvest,” “The Sound of Silverbells,” “Sitting in a Circle”).

Lauren J. Eichler, "Ecocide Is Genocide: Decolonizing the Definition of Genocide," Genocide Studies and Prevention, vol. 14, no. 2, 2020: 104-121.

Additional Readings:

• Toon van Meijl, Doing Indigenous Epistemology: Internal Debates about Inside Knowledge in Māori Society. “Current Anthropology”, vol. 60, no. 2, April 2019: 155-173.
• Morgan Ndlovu, Why Indigenous Knowledges in the 21st Century? A Decolonial Turn. Yesterday & Today, no. 11, July 2014: 85-98.
• AHR Exchange: Historians and Native American and Indigenous Studies. “American Historical Review”, April 2020: 517-551.
• Giuseppina D'Oro, "In defence of a humanistically oriented histopriography. The nature/culture distinction at the time of Anthropocene," in: Philosophy of History. Twenty-First-Century, ed. Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen. London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2020: 216-236.
• Raymond Pierotti, Indigenous Knowledge, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology. Routledge 2010.
• A Message From Russell Means (Lakota), 1993.
• Interview with Ailton Krenak - "Voices from the Forest."

Research Assignments: Study diagram “Qualities Associated with Traditional Knowledge and Western Science” and reflect (500 words) on how humanities, social sciences and natural sciences as well as indigenous knowledges might complement and supplement each other.

 

April 27
5. Animism as a Relational Epistemology and Ontology

Graham Harvey, Animism. Respecting the Living World. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006 ("Preface": xi-xxi).

Nurit Bird-David, "'Animism' Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology." Current Anthropology, vol. 40, February 1999: 567-591.

Tim Ingold, "Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought." Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, vol. 71, no. 1, March 2006: 9-20.

Arianne Conty, "Animism in the Anthropocene." Theory, Culture & Society, 2021: 1–27 (online first).

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, "Perspectival Anthropology and the Method of Controlled Equivocation." Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America, vol. 2, no. 1, 2004: 3-22.

Harry Garuba, "On Animism, Modernity/Colonialism, and the African Order of Knowledge: Provisional Reflections." e-flux, #36, July 2012.

Additional Readings:

• Bruno Latour, “How Not to (De-)animate Nature,” in his, Facing Gaia. Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime, trans. Cathy Porter. Polity Press 2017: 41-74.
• Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism. “The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute,” vol. 4, no. 3, September 1998: 469-488.
• The Handbook of Contemporary Animism, ed. by Graham Harvey. Acumen Publishing, 2013: 1-112.
• Istvan Praet, Animism and the Question of Life. Routledge, 2013: 1-60.
• Philippe Descola, Beyond Nature and Culture, trans. by Janet Lloyd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
• Rane Willerslev, Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2007.
• Ayur Zhanaev, The Human Being in Social and Cosmic Orders. Categories of Traditional Culture and the Problems of Contemporary Buryat Identity. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2019.
• Jean Piaget, The Child’s Conception of the World. Savage, MD: Littlefield Adams, 1951 (Part II. Animism: 169-251).

Research Assignment: using PhotoLab Picture Editor (for Android) create your face photo montage, half human/half animal or human/plant and write 500 words explaining your choice of animal/plant. How your perception of your subjectivity changes while involving animal/plant features.

 

May 4
6. The Ontological Turn, Animism and Non-Human Agents
special guests: Ana Illevska and Michelle K. Oing

Paolo Heywood, “The Ontological Turn,” in: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ed. by Felix Stein et al., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Clarendon Press, 1998: 16-23 and 121-133.

Jane Bennett, “The Force of Things. Steps Toward an Ecology of Matter.” Political Theory , vol. 32, no. 3, January 2004: 347-372.

Benjamin Alberti, “Archaeologies of Ontology.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 45, 2016: 163–79.

John Robb, “Beyond Agency.” World Archaeology, vol. 42, no. 4, 2010: 493-520.

Additional Readings:

• Alf Hornborg, “Artifacts have consequences, not agency: Toward a critical theory of global environmental history.” European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 20, no. 1, 2017: 95–110.
• Katja Sterflinger, “Fungi: Their role in deterioration of cultural heritage.” Fungal Biology Reviews, vol. 24, no. 1–2, February–May 2010: 47-55.
• Ian Hodder, “Human-Thing Entanglement: Towards an Integrated Archaeological Perspective.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 17, 2010: 154-177.
• Martin Holbraad, Morten Axel Pedersen, "Introduction," in: The Ontological Turn: An Anthropological Exposition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017: 1-29.
• Lucas Bessire and David Bond, “Ontological Anthropology and the Deferral of Critique.” American Ethnologist, vol. 41, no. 3, 2014: 440–56
• Ewa Domanska, “Is This Stone Alive? Prefiguring the Future Role of Archaeology.” Norwegian Archaeological Review, vol. 51, no. 1-2, 2018: 22-35..
• The Archaeology of Ancestors. Death, Memory, and Veneration, edited by Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2016.
• Dawid Kobiałka, et al. “Tree Memories of the Second World War: A Case Study of Common Beeches from Chycina, Poland.” Antiquity, vol. 89, no. 345, 2015: 683–696.
• Eleanor Harrison-Buck, Julia A. Hendon, “An Introduction to Relational Personhood and Other-than-Human Agency in Archaeology,” in their, Relational Identities and Other-Than-Human Agency in Archaeology. University of Colorado Press, 2018: 3-28.
• Linda A. Brown and William H. Walker, “Prologue: Archaeology, Animism and Non-Human Agents.” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 15, no. 4, December 2008 (theme issue: Archaeology, Animism, and Non-Human Agents): 297-299.
• Benjamin Alberti & Yvonne Marshall, “Animating Archaeology: Local Theories and Conceptually Open-Ended Methodologies.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal, vol. 19, no. 3, October 2009: 344-356.
• Benjamin Alberti and Severin Fowles, “Ecologies of Rock and Art in Northern New Mexico, in Multispecies archaeology, edited by Suzanne E. Pilaar Birch. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018: 133-153.

Homework: Create a research poster that focusses on the problem of ontology and non-human agents. Identify/create 3 concepts essential for your current research (and related to the course topics). Define each of them in approximately 100 words and include in the poster.

 

May 11
7. Multispecies Theories, Symbiotic Approaches and Arts of Attentiveness

Thom van Dooren, Eben Kirksey, Ursula Münster, “Multispecies Studies: Cultivating Arts of Attentiveness.” Environmental Humanities, vol. 8, no. 1, 1 May 2016: 1-23.

Anna Tsing, “Arts of Noticing,” in her, The Mushroom at the End of the World. Princeton University Press, 2015: 17-25.

Hannah E. Parathian, Matthew R. McLennan, Catherine M. Hill, Amélia Frazão-Moreira, Kimberley J. Hockings, “Breaking Through Disciplinary Barriers: Human–Wildlife Interactions and Multispecies Ethnography.” International Journal of Primatology, vol. 39, no. 5, October 2018: 749-775.

Participatory Research in More-than-Human Worlds, edited by Michelle Bastian, Owain Jones, Niamh Moore, Emma Roe. London: Routledge, 2017 (Introduction and chapt. 1: “Towards a More-Than-Human Participatory Research”: 1-37.

Additional Readings:

• S. Eben Kirksey, Stefan Helmriech, "On the Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography." Current Anthropology, vol. 25, no. 4, November 2010: 545-576 [special issue on “On the Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography”]
• Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human. University of California Press, 2013 (Introduction, chapt. 1, 1-68; 83-97; chapt. 4: 131-150; chapt. 6 and Epilogue: 191-228). [video: Eduardo Kohn on “sylvan” thinking and talking to forests. Harvard Divinity School, January 2018]
• Jonathan Erickson, "Walking With Elephants: A Case for Trans-Species Ethnography." The Trumpeter, vol. 33, no. 1, 2017: 23-47,
• Agata Konczal, "Telling (hi) stories in the Anthropocene: When Forest is Multispecies Relation," in: Posthuman Dialogues in International Relations, eds. Erika Cudworth, Stephen Hobden, Emilian Kavalski. London: Routledge, 2017: 52-71.
• Gavin Lucas, “Symbiotic Architecture,” in Multispecies archaeology, edited by Suzanne E. Pilaar Birch. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018: 105-117.
• Relational Archaeologies: Humans, Animals, Things, edited by Christopher Watts. London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2013.
• Jane I. Dawson, Eco-Nationalism. Anti-Nuclear Activism and National Identity in Russia, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996.
• Theresa L. Miller, Plant Kin: A Multispecies Ethnography in Indigenous Brazil. University of Texas Press, 2019.

Research Assignment: Using poem generator software, create a short poem that includes the word symbiosis or symbiotic.

 

May 18
8. Geologic Life / Geologic Subjects

Kathryn Yusoff, "Geologic Subjects: Nonhuman Origins, Geomorphic Aesthetics and the Art of Becoming Inhuman." Cultural Geographies, vol. 22, no. 3, 2015: 383-407.

Kathryn Yusoff, "Geologic Life: Prehistory, Climate, Futures in the Anthropocene." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space vol. 31, no. 5, 2013: 779-795.

Elizabeth A. Povinelli, “The Three Figures of Geontology,” in: her, Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016: 1-29 [or her, “Geontologies: The Concept and Its Territories.” e-flux, #81 - April 2017]

Additional Readings:

• Anna A. Gorbushina, Life on the Rocks, „Environmental Microbiology”, vol. 9, no. 7, July 2007: 1613-1631.
• Jennifer Gabrys, Sensing Lichens. Third Text, vol. 32, no. 2-3, 2018: 350-367.
• Elisabeth Ellsworth, Jamie Kruse, Introduction, in: Making the Geologic Now. Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life, eds. Elisabeth Ellsworth, Jamie Kruse, Punctum Books, Brooklyn, NY 2013:
• Monika Bakke, “Geologizing the Present: Making Kin with Mineral Species and Inhuman Forces,” in: The Forces behind the Forms, ed. Magdalena Holzhey. Krefeld: Kunstmuseum Krefeld, 2016: 59–65.
• Gisli Palsson, Heather Anne Swanson, “Down to Earth. Geosocialities and Geopolitics.” Environmental Humanities, vol. 8, no. 2, 2016: 149-171.
• Christopher Tilley, The Materiality of Stone. Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology. Oxford: Berg, 2004 (fragments).
• Encyclopedia of Geoarchaeology, edited by Allan S. Gilbert et all. Dordrecht: Springer Reference, 2017.
• Jeffrey J. Cohen, Stone. An Ecology of the Inhuman, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2015.
• Dana Luciano, “Speaking Substances: Rock.” Los Angeles Review of Books, April 12, 2016
• Francesc Bellaubi, "Spiritual Dimensions in Exploring the Human-Geosphere Relationship under a Values-Based Approach in Lake Turgoyak, Southern Urals, Russia". Sibirica, vol. 2, no. 1, 2021: 58-94.

Research Assignment: make a photo of a stone that in your opinion might be considered as a geologic subject or persona. Describe and analyze representation of the stone on the photo in 500 words.

 

May 25
9. Soil-Human Relations / Becoming Humus

Alfred E. Hartemink i Alex McBratney, “A Soil Science Renaissance.” Geoderma, vol. 148, 2008 [123–129].

Katsuyuki Minami, “Soil and Humanity: Culture, Civilization, Livelihood and Health.” Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, vol. 55, 2009: 603-615.

Anna Krzywoszynska, Greta Marchesi, “Toward a Relational Materiality of Soils.” Environmental Humanities, vol. 12, no. 1, May 2020: 190-204.

Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press, 2016: 32, 55, 101-102.

Additional Readings:

• Rosi Braidotti, “Becoming-Earth,” in her, The Posthuman. Polity Press, 2013: 81-89.
• Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, "Making Time for Soil: Technoscientific Futurity and the Pace of Care." Social Studies of Science, vol. 45, no. 5, 2015: 691-716.
• Kathleen M. Bergen et al., “Human Dimensions of Environmental Change in Siberia,” in: Regional Environmental Changes in Siberia and their Global Consequences, ed. Pavel Ya Groisman and Garik Gutman. Dordrecht, New York: Springer, 2013: 251-302.
• Doubravka Olšáková, “Conclusion: Environmental History, East European Societies, and Totalitarian Regimes,”  In the Name of the Great Work: Stalin´s Plan for Transformation of Nature and Its Impact in Eastern Europe, ed. Doubravka Olšáková. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2016: 290-302.
• Anna Barcz, Environmental Cultures in Soviet East Europe Literature, History and Memory. London, Oxford, New York: Bloomsbory, 2020 (Part III: The Earth's Memory).
• Przemysław Charzyński, Maciej Markiewicz, Magdalena Majorek & Renata Bednarek, “Geochemical Assessment of Soils in the German Nazi Concentration Camp in Stutthof (Northern Poland).” Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, 61:sup1, 2015: 47-54.
• Zuzanna Dziuban, “Between Subjectification and Objectification. Theorising Ashes,” in Mapping the “Forensic Turn”: Engagements with Materialities of Mass Death in Holocaust Studies and Beyond, ed. Zuzanna Dziuban. Vienna: New Academic Press, 2017: 261-288.
• M. G. Canti, “Earthworm Activity and Archaeological Stratigraphy: A Review of Products and Processes.” Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 30, 2003: 135–148.

Research Assignment: Create a short video recording that presents soil as a living organism and activities of various non-human agents.

June 1
10. Conclusions: Ethics of Respons-Ability and Reciprocity

Joan C. Tronto, “Response-ability and Responsibility: Using Feminist New Materialisms and Care Ethics to Cope with Impatience in Higher Education,” in Posthuman and Political Care Ethics for Reconfiguring Higher Education Pedagogies, edited by Vivienne Bozalek, Michalinos Zembylas, Joan C. Tronto. Routledge, 2020:

John Charles Ryan, “Toward An Ethics of Reciprocity: Ethnobotanical Knowledge and Medicinal Plants as Cancer Therapies.” Humanities, vol. 3, 2014: 624–644.

Tarik Kochi & Noam Ordan, “An Argument for the Global Suicide of Humanity.” Borderlands, vol. 7, no. 3, 2008: 1-21.

John Milbank, Between Catastrophes: God, Nature and Humanity. March 3, 2021

Additional Readings:

• Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic,”, in his, A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches here and there. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1949] 1989: 201-226.
• Paul B. Thompson Paul B., “The Ethics of Soil. Stewardship, Motivation, and Moral Framing”, in Thomas J. Sauer, John Norman, Mannava V. K. Sivakumar (eds.), Sustaining Soil Productivity in Response to Global Climate Change: Science, Policy, and Ethics. Chichester, West Sussex, UK; Mes, Iowa: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011: 31-42.
• Goeffrey Frasz, “Environmental Character: Environmental Feelings, Sentiments and Virtues.” Ecophilosophical and Biopolitical Challenges. Past and Future, ed. Dominika Dzwonkowska, thematic issue of Ethics in Progress, vol. 7, no. 1, 2016, pp. 32–43.
• Michael A. Peters, Ruyu Hung, “Solar Ethics: a new paradigm for environmental ethics and education?” Policy Futures in Education, vol. 7, no. 3, 2009: 321-329.

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