Ethos

Students have been asking about the Spring Semester course I will teach at Williams College.

I’ll be teaching one course entitled ‘Understanding Policy’ and the ‘Senior Seminar’. I’ve included a brief description of the courses below. Both are in the Environmental Studies program, but students from other majors are welcome to register. I think you will find both of value.

If you find that the course is over-enrolled, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Please note that the schedule for these courses has changed. The new schedule is as follows.

Envi 309 Understanding Policy: Ethics, Science and Politics will be held from 11:20-12:45 on Tuesdays and Thursdays

Envi 402 Senior Seminar: Ethics and the Environment will be held from 19:00-21:45 on Mondays.

cheers, Bill

~

Envi 309. Understanding Policy: Ethics, Science, and Politics.
This course looks at environmental (and other) policies in light of the critical, interpretive and ethical turns in the social sciences. These turns emphasize the role of agency, meaning, power, discourse, and justice in the policy process, and are indispensable to understanding what policy is and how it works. We shall look at the theory, method and practice of this broadly ‘critical’ approach to policy, and apply its insights and tools to a set of empirical cases where the well-being of people, animals and nature is at stake.

The format is lecture and discussion. Evaluation is based on tests, a research paper (in lieu of a final exam), and active participation in class. Enrolment is limited to 20, or with the permission of the instructor.

This course satisfies one semester of the Division II requirement for Williams, and one semester of the environmental policy requirement for Environmental Studies.

Envi 402. Senior Seminar: Ethics and the Environment.
This seminar focuses on the ethical and conceptual dimensions of environmental studies. It does so to facilitate our individual reflection and collective deliberation about humanity’s relationship to nature, the framing of environmental issues in scientific, political and moral debate, and the implications this has for the resolution of environmental problems. Students integrate what they learn in this seminar with their prior coursework and experience, and produce a policy-relevant research paper on an environmental issue of their choice. Environmental Studies and Maritime Studies provide students with an opportunity to explore nature-society relations from local to global scales, and with particular emphasis on terrestrial and aquatic contexts. The possible topics that one might research in this course are boundless.

The format is seminar-based. Evaluation is based on tests, a research paper (in lieu of a final exam), and active participation in class. Enrolment is limited to Envi or MAST students, whose prerequisites are Envi 302 or MAST 351. Other students may enrol with the permission of the instructor.

This course satisfies a required course for the Environmental Studies or Maritime Studies concentrations.

William Lynn :: Oct.26.2008 :: Student Space :: No Comments »