What role do films play in shaping our imagination of the environment? How has cinema influenced our actions in the past, and how might it alter our actions in the future? What effect do films have in understanding non-human systems, knowledge production, or storytelling? How can an eco-critical approach to film challenge and/or subvert those assertions? Can film in particular advocate for the planet's agency? These are some of the central questions we will explore as we screen and examine the intersections between films/film-making and ecological ways of knowing from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Through critical analysis of a variety of cinema traditions, genres, and practices, students gain exposure to films as expressions of environmental discourse and their potential as inspiration and instigators of environmental action. Students apply the tools of eco-critical cultural studies and ecologically informed approaches to cinematic practice, and to representations of the relationships that humans have with the non-human. Themes explored will vary and may include: the material ecologies of film production; cinematic ideology and affect; the eco-politics of Hollywood and its alternatives; representations of landscape, sense of place, and identity; the imperial and colonial gaze; ecological utopias and dystopias; tensions between human `dominance' and co-existence with other species; problematizing the eco-documentary; the ever-growing climate catastrophe genre and its reactions (e.g. eco-anxiety); foodways and human (over)consumption; and Indigenous and social justice activism.

Environmental justice can only occur with rich and complex understandings of the intersections of culture, ecology, politics, history, and community. This course seeks to understand the persistence of environmental racism in an inclusive and historicized landscape, one that considers multiple forms of knowledge and expertise and embodies the idea that imagining a more equitable, sustainable future is not possible without a grounded notion of the past and its present articulations. The course will use transdisciplinary perspectives to trace economic and environmental processes over time, situate them within rich cultural bodies of knowledge, and consider the differential impacts of inequalities on a range of regions and peoples. Students will undertake place-based case studies, examinations of broad patterns, commodity- and resource-specific process tracing, and engage with the surrounding human and natural environment. Consequently, this course demands a full critical engagement across disciplines and landscapes, and with each other and the local community.

This course focuses on the management of water resources. More specifically, it addresses the tensions and interactions between hydrological principles, economics, and politics during water management decision making processes. This course challenges students to develop an understanding of the interrelationship between different disciplinary fields of knowledge, including those in the physical and social sciences. Students learn about a wide variety of natural processes that determine the distribution and quality of the world's freshwater resources. Students also learn about the many ways that freshwater resources are affected by human activities at a global, national and local scale.

Conserving wild places through the creation of national parks is not only a reflection of environmental priorities, but a profoundly political undertaking that can bring significant changes to local landscapes. This course examines the intersection of protected areas and political priorities in local, regional, and global context, including discussion of issues such as tourism, human-wildlife conflict, forced displacement, and community-based conservation.

Global climate change is considered by many to be the most significant environmental challenge of the 21st century. Unchecked, the continued accumulation of greenhouse gases over this century is projected to eventually warm the planet by about 6 to 14 °F, with associated impacts on the environment, economy, and society. This course explores the economic characteristics of the climate change problem, assesses national and international policy design and implementation issues, and provides a survey of the economic tools necessary to evaluate climate change policies. It is largely discussion-oriented and thus requires a high degree of participation by students in the classroom. Cross-listed as ECON/ENVP 327.

This course examines the history of the Cold War era nuclear testing and uranium extraction in the American West, in order to understand the environmental, cultural, political, and health ramifications of these activities. Using nuclear history as a case study, it explores interdisciplinary methodologies for gathering and studying narratives about human relationships with the environment.

The preservation of biodiversity--of the variety of living organisms here on Earth--has recently become a major focus of scientific and environmental concern and policy. This course draws on perspectives from history, ethics, environmental studies, and conservation biology to explore the ways in which ideas and values have shaped scientific approaches to biodiversity and to the current biodiversity crisis.

This course examines examples of ways in which different religions and spiritual systems think about nature as a resource, place, and context for beliefs and practices. How do organized belief systems relate to the natural environment, and what does this mean for the place of humans within it?

The course examines the intersection of environmental issues with politics and policy-making on a global as well as a local scale. It explores international structures and efforts to deal with environmental problems, a wide range of particular environmental challenges such as climate change and conservation, and the different experiences of individual countries in trying to use and manage their natural resources. Throughout, the relationships between political and natural systems are explored, with a particular focus on the ways in which politics and policy can both produce effective strategies and new difficulties for handling environmental challenges.

This course is a survey of natural and human-influenced geological "catastrophes," and focuses primarily on four hazards that are relevant to the Puget Sound region: (1) volcanic eruptions, (2) earthquakes, (3) floods, (4) landslides. It examines the relationship of science and other fields, including economics and politics, in the development of policy to help us cope with potential catastrophes. The course reviews some of the scientific literature bearing on each disaster, discusses points of controversy with the scientific community, and considers ways in which our society - primarily government - uses this information to develop hazard mitigation strategies and regulations. Each unit concludes with analysis and discussion of one or more case studies.