ASRC 6405 - Black Ecologies and Climate Injustice

Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

T. Goffe.

This graduate seminar explores race and the environment towards an ethics of global climate justice. It will underscore the entanglement of histories of racial capitalism and ecological crisis. Engaging in the spatial turn and attention to the evolution of geography as a discipline transnationally, students will consider global black identity in relation to the land and sea. The course will be organized around key texts from Caribbean diasporic theorists including Édouard Glissant, Sylvia Wynter, Katherine McKittrick, Kamau Brathwaite, and Jamaica Kincaid. Key concepts include, settler colonialism, decoloniality, indigeneity, and black poethics. From Hurricane Katrina to Hurricane Maria to Hurricane Dorian and recent earthquakes in Haiti we will tackle the unequal distribution of the effects of climate disaster on communities of color at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Students will produce an article length final paper relating to class material.