Please note that this syllabus should be regarded as only a general guide to the course. The instructor may have changed
specific course content and requirements subsequent to posting this syllabus. Last Modified: 21:56:00 09/06/2010
Sociology 025/History 121 People and Nature: The History and Future
of Human Impacts on the Planet
Fall 2010
Professor Prasannan Parthasarathi
office: 455 Campanella
office hours: Monday 2-4 and by appointment
phone: x2-1579
email: parthasa@bc.edu
Professor Juliet Schor
office: 519 Mc Guinn
phone: x2-4056
office hours: Tu 10-12 and by appointment
email: juliet.schor@bc.edu
Teaching Assistants:
Kimberly Bachechi Kimberly.Bachechi@bc.edu
Peter Moloney
Peter.Moloney@bc.edu
Luka Carfagna
Carfagnl@bc.edu
Course Description: The 21st century opened with combined crises of climate, biodiversity, and eco-system functioning. In contrast to much sustainability discourse, human
disruption of the natural environment is not new. Indeed, environmental historians have
identified major human alterations in eco-systems over the last 500 years. This course
combines contemporary analyses of human impacts on the environment with the historical
record, and explores both the familiar and the novel in the realm of ecological challenges.
Requirements: Written requirements are six short response papers (30%), an in-class
midterm (20%), a final examination (30%) and participation in weekly sections (20%).
Assignments and discussion questions will be posted on the course website. The course
website is at cms.bc.edu.
Readings: The books listed below are available at the BC Bookstore. Books and articles are
on reserve at O’Neill Library. Articles not included in the required texts will be posted on
the course website.
Required texts:
William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (Hill and
Wang, 2003)
Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: The Biological Consequences of 1492 (Greenwood Press
1972)
Diane Dumanoski, The End of the Long Summer (Crown Books, 2010)
Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes from a Catastrophe (Bloomsbury Books 2006)
J.R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century
World (Norton 2001)
Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (South End Press 2005)
Academic Integrity and Plagiarism Policy: We take cheating and plagiarism extremely
seriously. We have appended the University’s academic integrity statement to this syllabus.
You are responsible for knowing what that policy is, and how cheating and plagiarism are
defined.
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Reading List
I. The Challenge of Sustainability: The climate crisis, ecological footprint and
overshoot, ecological issues in a global context. Sept 8
Dumanoski, chs 1-3.
Global Footprint Network, The Ecological Wealth of Nations, pp. 1-10.
Juliet Schor, Plenitude: the new economics of true wealth (Penguin Press 2010) ch 2.
II. Human Movement and Unintended Consequences: impacts from the
Columbian Exchange Sept 13, 15
Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: the Biological Consequences of 1492, chs. 1-3, 5.
III. Population and Global Poverty: Demographic transition and the late 20th century
population explosion, the role of population in ecological degradation, global
poverty Sept 20, 22
McNeill, chs 1, 9.
Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, “The Population Bomb Revisited,” The Electronic
Journal of Sustainable Development (2009), Vol 1(3), pp. 63-71.
Betsy Hartmann “Rethinking the Role of Population in Human Security,” in Richard A.
Matthew et al, eds, Global Environmental Change and Human Security, (MIT Press 2010), pp 193204.
Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, ch. 1.
IV. Global economic growth and de-forestation: deforestation in the 18th and 19th
centuries in Europe and Asia, and the contemporary de-forestation of tropical
areas September 27, 29 Oct 4, 6
September 27: Totman, Conrad. The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Pre-Industrial Japan (Athens,
Ohio, 1998), chs. 4-6.
McNeill, ch. 8.
Mann, Michael. “Ecological Change in North India: Deforestation and Agrarian Distress in
the Ganga-Yamuna Doab 1800-1850,” in Richard H. Grove, Vinita Damodaran and Satpal
Sangwan (eds.), Nature and the Orient: The Environmental History of South and Southeast Asia
(Delhi, 1998).
October 4: Norman Myers and Richard Tucker, “Deforestation in Central America: Spanish
Legacy and North American Consumers,” Environmental Review, Vol. 11:11 (Spring, 1987), pp.
55-71.
Wangaari Mathai, “Foresters without Diplomas,” Unbowed, ch 6, pp.119-138.
Winona LaDuke, “White Earth: Recovering a Homeland,” in James K. Boyce and Barry G.
Shelley, Natural Assets: Democratizing Environmental Ownership, (Island Press 2003) pp. 153-168.
IN-CLASS MIDTERM OCTOBER 13 No sections this week
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V. The Energy Revolution and Climate Change: The shift to fossil fuels,
industrialization and the climate crisis Oct 18, 20, 25, 27
October 18: McNeill, ch 10.
E. A. Wrigley, Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England
(Cambridge, 1988), chaps. 2-3.
Dumanoski, ch 4.
October 25: Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, chs. 1-5.
Ian Allison et al, “The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate
Science,” 2009, University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Center, pps., 1-21,
37-53, available online at http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/download/default.html
Kari Norgaard, “People want to protect themselves a little bit,” Sociological Inquiry Vol. 76,
No. 3, August 2006, 372–396.
Aaron M. McCright and Riley E. Dunlap, “Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement's
Impact on U.S. Climate Change Policy,” Social Problems, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Aug., 2003), pp. 348373.
Guest Lecture: Diane Dumanoski, author of The End of the Long Summer. October 20
Film: The Age of Stupid.
I. Agriculture and the challenge of sustainable food systems
Enclosure of the commons, the rise of industrialized agriculture and the
emergence of an alternative food system
Nov 1, 3, 8, 10
Nov 1: William Cronon, Changes in the Land.
Nov 8:
Prasannan Parthasarathi, “Toward Property as Share,” in Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the 21st
Century, eds., Juliet B. Schor and Betsy Taylor, (Beacon Press 2000), pp. 141-153.
Debbie Barker, The Rise and Predictable Fall of Globalized Industrial Agriculture (SF:
International Forum on Globalization, pp. 1-25, 49-55. available at:
http://www.ifg.org/store.htm
Hugh Warwick, “Cuba’s Organic Revolution,” FORUM for Applied Research and Public Policy,
Summer 2001.
Alison Leitch, “Slow Food and the Politics of Pork Fat: Italian Food and European
Identity,” Ethnos Vol 68(4): 437-462.
II. Water, from Abundance to Scarcity: The breakdown of sustainable water use
Nov 15, 17
McNeill, chs 5,6.
Charles Fishman, “Message in a Bottle,” FastCompany.com, issue 117, July 2007.
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Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s
Water, (New York: New Press, 2002), chs, 4-5.
Thanksgiving Week
Nov 22 Lecture on Toxic Burden
No readings this week.
III. Global Overshoot and Environmental Inequalities: Inequalities of resource use,
the global spread of ecologically intensive lifestyles, and the global allocation of
harms Nov 29, Dec 1
New Economics Foundation, “Growth Isn’t Possible,” pp. 1-23.
Myers and Kent, The New Consumers (Island Press 2004) chs 1, 3.
Wolfgang Sachs and Tilman Santarius, Fair Future: Resource Conflicts, Security and Global Justice
(London: Zed Books 2007), ch 2.
Dumanoski, ch 6.
Shoibal Chakravartya, Ananth Chikkaturb, Heleen de Coninckc, Stephen Pacalaa, Robert
Socolow, and Massimo Tavon, “Sharing global CO2 emission reductions among
one billion high emitters,” PNAS, 2009.
IV. Ecological Activism and the Sustainability Movement: the emergence of a
worldwide movement that recognizes planetary trends and is determined to
reverse them. Dec 6, 8
Ramachandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya
(Delhi,1989), ch.7.
Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest, (Penguin 2007), ch 1.
Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy, chs 1-3.
Optional: Dumanoski, chs 7-9.
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Sociology 025 and the Core Curriculum Sociology 025 is a part of the Core Curriculum in
Sociology. As such it is designed to address a range of intellectual issues, using a variety of
methodologies, and to engage students in particular ways. These are discussed below.
1. The long-standing questions. Sociology, and intellectual inquiry more generally, have
long been preoccupied with a set of big questions. These include the debate over
biological versus sociological causality, the nature of human agency, what is social
justice and how can it be realized, and what constitutes progress? This course
addresses these, and other similar issues, through the lens of humans’ relationship to
the natural world. For example, we will be considering the extent and ways in which
ecological degradation is caused by human actions, and particularly whether
outcomes have been intentional. We will explore alternative explanations for major
ecological trends such as de-forestation. We will look at the climate debate through a
number of lenses, including global justice, politics, and collective denial. We will
examine the ways in which ecological resources are appropriated, used and degraded.
Throughout, large themes explaining humans’ relationship to the natural world will
be emphasized.
2. Cultural diversity. This course takes a broad and culturally diverse perspective, using
examples from most parts of the world. We will look at de-forestation in Central
America and Europe, land use in India, how Western conceptions of population
have been colored by racial stereotyping, and so on. The main historical text is
global.
3. Historical perspective. The course is being co-taught by a historian and a sociologist.
As such, a historical perspective is present throughout. In each unit of the course, we
begin with a historical analysis of the topic and then move to contemporary period.
4. Methodology. Students are exposed to a variety of methodological approaches and
tools. We will be reading standard historical and social science articles, some activist
writing and journalistic, first hand accounts. By looking at a variety of points of view
we are able to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of various methods of
analysis.
5. Writing component. The course requires not only reading, but also considerable
writing. In addition to a mid-term and a final examination, students write bi-weekly
essays that incorporate readings.
6. Creating a personal philosophy. Every one of us is a citizen of the planet, but not all
of us have thought consciously about what that means. How do our consumption
decisions affect eco-systems? How does our participation in a global economy
impact the earth? What is our personal ecological footprint? A major objective of
this course is to get us to think critically and consciously about human impacts on
the planet and their role in them. In addition, the course is designed to get us to
think analyze how we conceptualize the planet and humans’ relationship to it. As we
shall see, those fundamental ideas are central to both how humans fare on the planet
and how they alter it.
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Boston College Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures (excerpted)
Copied from: http://www.bc.edu/integrity
The pursuit of knowledge can proceed only when scholars take responsibility and receive
credit for their work. Recognition of individual contributions to knowledge and of the
intellectual property of others builds trust within the university and encourages the sharing
of ideas that is essential to scholarship. Similarly, the educational process requires that
individuals present their own ideas and insights for evaluation, critique, and eventual
reformulation. Presentation of others' work as one's own is not only intellectual dishonesty,
but also undermines the educational process.
Standards: Academic integrity is violated by any dishonest act which is committed in an
academic context including, but not restricted to the following:
Cheating is the fraudulent or dishonest presentation of work. Cheating includes but is not
limited to:
* the use or attempted use of unauthorized aids in examinations or other academic
exercises submitted for evaluation;
* fabrication, falsification, or misrepresentation of data, results, sources for papers or
reports, or in clinical practice, as in reporting experiments, measurements, statistical analyses,
tests, or other studies never performed; manipulating or altering data or other manifestations
of research to achieve a desired result; selective reporting, including the deliberate
suppression of conflicting or unwanted data;
* falsification of papers, official records, or reports;
* copying from another student's work;
* actions that destroy or alter the work of another student;
* unauthorized cooperation in completing assignments or during an examination;
* the use of purchased essays or term papers, or of purchased preparatory research for
such papers;
* submission of the same written work in more than one course without prior written
approval from the instructors involved;
* dishonesty in requests for make-up exams, for extensions of deadlines for submitting
papers, and in any other matter relating to a course.
Plagiarism is the deliberate act of taking the words, ideas, data, illustrations, or statements
of another person or source, and presenting them as one's own. Each student is responsible
for learning and using proper methods of paraphrasing and footnoting, quotation, and other
forms of citation, to ensure that the original author, speaker, illustrator, or source of the
material used is clearly acknowledged.
Other breaches of academic integrity include:
* the misrepresentation of one's own or another's identity for academic purposes;
* the misrepresentation of material facts or circumstances in relation to examinations,
papers, or other evaluative activities;
* the sale of papers, essays, or research for fraudulent use;
* the alteration or falsification of official University records;
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* the unauthorized use of University academic facilities or equipment, including computer
accounts and files;
* the unauthorized recording, sale, purchase, or use of academic lectures, academic
computer software, or other instructional materials;
* the expropriation or abuse of ideas and preliminary data obtained during the process of
editorial or peer review of work submitted to journals, or in proposals for funding by agency
panels or by internal University committees;
* the expropriation and/or inappropriate dissemination of personally-identifying human
subject data;
* the unauthorized removal, mutilation, or deliberate concealment of materials in University
libraries, media, or academic resource centers.
Collusion is defined as assistance or an attempt to assist another student in an act of
academic dishonesty. Collusion is distinct from collaborative learning, which may be a
valuable component of students' scholarly development. Acceptable levels of collaboration
vary in different courses, and students are expected to consult with their instructor if they
are uncertain whether their cooperative activities are acceptable.
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