Syllabus1
Environmental Studies 3600
Environmental Justice and Sustainability
Bemidji State University
1 Contact Information
Josefina Li
Office: HS 346
Phone: (218) 755-2485
E-Mail:jli@bemidjistate.edu
2 Class Meeting
TR 2:00pm-3:15pm, S331
3 Pre-requisites
ENVR 2000: Introduction to Environmental Studies or consent of the instructor
4 Catalog Description
The course investigates the ethical and moral dimensions of environmental choices, and
the legal, philosophical, political, and economic underpinnings of various theories of
justice. A major focus is the inequitable distribution of environmental risks and the
implications of policies that attempt to combat these risks.
5 Textbook
Required: Van DeVeer, Donald and Christine Pierce, The Environmental Ethics and Policy
Book, 2nd: Ed. Wadsworth Publishing Company. ISBN: 0-534-54534-5 (V&P)
Bullard, Robert, The Quest for Environmental Justice, The Sierra Club Book. ISBN ISBN10: 1578051207 | ISBN-13: 978-1578051205 (QEJ)
Additional readings (both required and recommended) are available online on the
Desire2Learn course website.
6 Course Policies
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Professionalism: This class is one of your first professional environments, so we
will define and practice quality behavior. Behaviors such as texting, non-course
work related laptop usage, arriving late, being unprepared, missing class, shirking
group work, turning in work late, not doing your own work, or other less desirable
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Syllabus is tentative and is subject to revision as needed. All rights reserved. This material may not be
reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without prior written permission of the copyright holder. For
permission, contact jyli@d.umn.edu.
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behaviors. Please respect the instructor as well as your peers to help creating a safe
and comfortable learning environment. Please refrain from talking to those around
you, when the instructor or one of your classmates is talking to the whole class. If
you do not understand the material, it is likely that others in the class have the same
question, so don’t be afraid to ask me. My intent is rather to help you lay the
groundwork for excellence, and so your professional demeanor towards this class
counts heavily.
Attendance: Attendance is mandatory for the successful completion of the course.
Excused absences are acceptable. Regardless of the reason for an absence, students
are still responsible for the material they have missed.
Email: Almost all of the communication is through university email, thus it is
particularly important for students to check email frequently. I welcome emails in
regard to readings, homework problems, and even current debates. Please note that
I will only receive and respond to emails during business hours. Your email should
also display professionalism, that is it should always be written in a professional
tone, spell checked, grammar checked and proof read before sending out and your
question should not have its answers be found on the syllabus or in class
announcements.
Participation: Class participation involves not only physical attendance, but also
intellectual engagement. Therefore, you will be graded on both the quantity and
quality of your classroom participation. Although I will frequently deliver
background lectures, we will spend some of our class time discussing the readings.
Because this is a reading and writing intensive course, to earn a high participation
grade you should come to class prepared with notes and questions from the
readings. I may post a set of discussion questions on the website for the readings to
help you think about key concepts as you read, and jot down a few of your thoughts
about each question. If you prepare in this way, you will be ready to initiate and
engage in classroom discussions. Those who dominate class discussions to the
exclusion of others or regularly interrupt classmates will not earn high participation
grades. I may also administer pop reading quizzes or end of class period minute
paper that will count towards your participation grade.
Short Essay Papers: There will be 2 short essays assigned throughout the course. It
will be a set essay question, which students will have to respond to. The length of
each essay is at minimum 1500 words and should not exceed 2000 words. In each
essay students will reference the course readings. A bibliography must be attached.
The paper and bibliography must conform to MLA, APA or Chicago styles. For
help with writing academic papers, please refer to the writing center.
Final research paper: Students will choose a topic of their interest to work on
throughout the course, and present the final work at the end of the semester. The
topic must be related to the course, and approved by the instructor. It is a research
paper, so outside sources are recommended for a good quality research paper. The
paper should be around 5000 words for the undergraduates, and 7000 words for the
graduate students. In addition to the paper, the graduate students are also asked to
do a self-assessment.
Make-up Work: There will be no make-up work. Anyone who is unable to turn in
assignments at the due date because of a University sanctioned event, or any other
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excused absence, must turn that work in advance of the scheduled time. Late work
will be penalized 10% per day.
Extra Credit: There is maybe one extra credit assignment worth 5 points.
Presentations: Student groups are to make a 15-20 minutes presentation on an
assigned reading to the class.
7 Course Objectives
Environmental justice (EJ) is both a mode of scholarship and a social movement. The U.S.
environmental justice movement emerged in the 1980s in response to the growing
acknowledgement that marginalized communities were bearing a disproportionate burden
of hazardous waste exposure. In the 1980s, researchers from academia, government and
the nonprofit sector began to document these disproportionate impacts across a range of
environmental hazards. Since the 1980s, EJ research has shifted towards investigating the
causes and consequences of these patterns. This upper-division course explores the history
of the environmental justice movement in the U.S., the ideas and theories of EJ scholarship
and the application of these concepts to other sustainability issues, such as food and
agriculture, trade and development, air quality, climate change, and tribal issues. In this
course, you will:
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Understand how people from different backgrounds are differentially affected by
environmental problems,
Apply the theories and methods of environmental justice to broader
environmental controversies,
Develop critical reading and group leadership skills, and
Apply these skills in a series of writing assignments and supplementary activities.
7 Assessment
Grades are assigned based upon the quality of their work. The writing assignments will
assess each student’s ability to draw from the course materials and to critically evaluate an
event, a position, or an issue related to environmental justice. Rubric will be given prior to
the assignments.
7.1 Grade Weights
The final grade is weighted as follows:
Short Paper 1: 20%
Short Paper 2: 20%
Participation: 15%
Final Paper: 25%
Presentation: 20%
8 Tentative Class Outline
8.1 Inequality in the US
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Mantsios, G. (2001). Class in America: Myths and Realities. In P. S. Rothenberg (Ed.),
Race, Class, and Gender in the United States (pp. 168-182). New York, NY: Worth
Publishers.
McIntosh, P. (2001). White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. In P. S.
Rothenberg (Ed.), Race, Class, and Gender in the United States (pp. 163-168). New
York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Ehrenreich, B. (2011). Nickel-and-Dimed: On (not) Getting by in America. In D. B.
Grusky & S. Szelenyi (Eds.), The Inequality Reader: Contemporary and
Foundational Readings in Race, Class, and Gender (pp. 136-146). Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2001). Racial Formations. In P. S. Rothenberg (Ed.), Race,
Class, and Gender in the United States (pp. 11-20). New York, NY: Worth
Publishers. SAKAI
8.2 Ecofeminism
V&P pp.279-303
- “Econfeminism: Preview"
- Warren, Karen “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism"
- Davion, Victoria “How Feminist is Ecofeminism?"
- Shiva, Vandana “Development, Ecology, and Women"
Bullard, R “Women Warriors of Colar on the Front Line”in Bullard (ed.) The Quest for
Environmental Justice, Sierra Club Books, pp. 62-84
8.3 Deep Ecology
V&P pp.259-277
-“Deep Ecology and Social Ecology: Preview”
-Devall, Bill and George Sessions “Deep Ecology”
-Naess Arne “Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the world”
-“Will Ecology Become ‘The Dismal Science’”
8.4 Buddhist Economics and Ecological Economics
E. F. Schumacher (1999) “Buddhist Economics” in Small is Beautiful, Hartley and Marks
Pub.
Daly, Herman (2008) “A Steady-State Economy: A failed growth economy and a steadyState economy are not the same thing; they are the very different alternatives we
face."
Selection from Costanza, Robert (ed.)(1991) Ecological Economics: The Science and
Management of Sustainability. New York: Columbia University Press (pp. 1-7)
Spash, Clive L. (2013) “The Shallow or the Deep Ecological Economics Movement?”
Ecological Economics, 93, 351-362
8.5 Defining Justice and Environmental Justice
Chapter One from Schlosberg, David (2007). Defining Environmental Justice: Theory,
Movement and Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (pp.3-9)
Chapter Two from Shrader-Frechette, K. S. (2002). Environmental Justice: Creating
Equality, Reclaiming Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (pp. 23-47)
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Chapter One from Walker, Gordon (2012). Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence
and Politics. Routledge:New York. (pp. 1-16)
Bullard, Robert (1999) “Dismantling Environmental Racism”, Local Environment, 4(1),
5-19
Grossman, Karl “Environmental Racism" (V&P)
8.6 The Environmental Justice Movement
Chapter Two from Walker, Gordon (2012). Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence
and Politics. Routledge:New York. (pp. 17-35)
Bullard, R “Environmental Justice in the Twenty-first Century” in Bullard (ed.) The
Quest for Environmental Justice, Sierra Club Books, pp. 168-187
Taylor Dorceta E. “The Evolution of Environmental Justice Activism, Research and
Scholarship”, Environmental Practice, 13(4), 280-301
8.7 Evidence and Controversy of Environmental Injustice
Chapter Three from Walker, Gordon (2012). Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence
and Politics. Routledge:New York. (pp. 39-103)
United Church of Christ. 1987: Toxic wastes and race in the United States: A national
report on the racial and socio-economic characteristics of communities with
hazardous waste sites: Public data access, Inc. (Note: Read the Executive Summary
and SKIM the rest)
Anderton, D. L. (1995). Studies used to prove charges of environmental racism are
flawed. In J. Petrikin (Ed.), Environmental justice (pp. 24–37). San Diego, CA:
Greenhaven Press, Inc.
Pastor, Manuel Jr. and James L. Sadd “Environmental Inequity in Metropolitan Los
Angeles" in Bullard (ed.) The Quest for Environmental Justice, Sierra Club Books,
pp.108-124
8.8 Case Studies of Environmental Injustice
Bullard, Robert D. “Neighborhoods Zoned for Garbage" in Bullard (ed.) The Quest for
Environmental Justice, Sierra Club Books, pp. 43-61
Wright, Beverly “Living and Dying in Louisiana's Cancer Alley" in Bullard (ed.) The
Quest for Environmental Justice, Sierra Club Books, pp. 87-106
Garcia, Robert and Erica Flores “Anatomy of the Urban Parks Movement: Equal Justice,
Democracy, and Livability in Los Angeles" in Bullard (ed.) The Quest for
Environmental Justice, Sierra Club Books, pp. 145-167
Gedicks, Al. “Resource Wars against Native People" in Bullard (ed.) The Quest for
Environmental Justice, Sierra Club Books, pp. 168-187
St. Regis Superfund (D2L)
Pena, Devon G. “Tierra y Vida: Chicano Environmental Justice Struggle in the
Southwest” in in Bullard (ed.) The Quest for Environmental Justice, Sierra Club
Books, pp. 118-206
Collin Robert Morris, and Collin Robert “Environmental Reparations" in Bullard (ed.)
The Quest for Environmental Justice, Sierra Club Books, pp. 209-221. (maybe)
8.9 “Trade and Development" and the Environment
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Bullard, Johnson and Torres “Addressing Global Poverty, Pollution, and Human Rights”
in Bullard (ed.) The Quest for Environmental Justice, Sierra Club Books,
N. Shanmugaratnam (1989) “Development and Environment: A View from the South,"
Race and Class, 30(3), 13-30.
O’Connor, James (1989) “Uneven and combined development and ecological crisis: a
theoretical introduction”, Race and Class, 30(3), 1-11.
Third World Network (1989) “Toxic Waste Dumping in the Third World," Race and
Class, 30(3), 47-56
“A Third World Critique" (V&P)
8.10 From the Commons to Property
V&P pp. 359-378
-“Preview”
-Hardin, Garret “The Tragedy of the Commons”
-Monbiot, George “The Tragedy of Enclosure"
-Locke, John “The Creation of Property”
-Shrader-Frechette, Kristin “Property Rights in Natural Resources”
-Sagoff, Mark “Takings, Just Compensation, and the Environment”
Forstater, Mathew (2002) “Bones for Sale: 'development', Environment and Food
Security in East Africa," Review of Political Economy, 14(1), 47-67.
Swaney, James A. (1990) “Common Property, Reciprocity, and Community” Journal of
Economic Issues 24(2), 451-461
8.10 Sustainability
V&P pp.419-443
-“Preview”
-Partridge Ernest, “Future Generations”
-Solow, Robert “Sustainability: An Economist's Perspective"
-Goodin, Robert “Sustainability", (V&P)
-Goodland, Robert “The Case That the World has Reached Limits" (V&P) pp. 598-607
8.11 Environmental Problems and Policies
-skim V&P pp.451-622, pay attention to Russow, Jackson, Norton, Michaels.
Forstater, Mathew (2006) “Green Jobs: Public Service Employment and Environmental
Sustainability" Challenge Vol. 49, No. 4. pp.58-72.
8.12 Varieties of Activism/Grass Root Initiatives
-V&P pp. 625-643
9 Academic Integrity Statement
BSU students are expected to practice the highest standards of ethics, honesty and integrity
in all of their academic work. Any form of academic dishonesty (e.g., plagiarism, cheating
and misrepresentation may result in disciplinary action. In cases of serious infractions, I
will follow University policies for academic honesty and plagiarism. Possible disciplinary
actions may include failure for part of or all of a course as well as suspension from the
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University.
10 Students with Special Needs Statement
Upon request this document can be made available in alternate formats. Please contact me
or the Disability Services in Sanford Hall 201 at 218/755-3883 or through E-mail address
Disabilityservices@bemidjistate.edu. It is also available through the Minnesota Relay
Service at 1-800-627-3529. Please note that this is not restricted to student with disability,
but anyone coming from diverse background who may need different arrangement beyond
accommodation, please feel welcomed to express your concern, need, or suggestions.
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