Washington State University is located in Pullman, WA and was founded in 1890. There are about 21,800 undergraduates and 4,500 graduate students at this institution.
Courses Relationships between plants and people, especially cultural and economic applications of plants. Field Ecology 2 ( BIOL 563, 0-6 credits) Web Link: Cultures and Politics of Environmental Justice (AES 498/ANTH 469E) A comparative survey of the history and politics of environmental justice movements in the U.S, and other parts of the world with a focus on the methods and materials used in the study of environmental racism, environmental risk, and sustainable development. This will include consideration of debates over the politics of environmental risk and environmental impact assessment, the fate of Title VI litigation, the emergence of autonomy-based strategies, and the problematic of environmental sustainability and social justice. Web Link: Environmental Anthropology (ANTH 210 ) This is a basic introduction to the anthropology of how people interact with their natural environment. Main topics for the course will be:
This course is intended for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students with some background in anthropology, biology, environmental studies, or cognate fields. The focus is on the ecology of non-industrialized societies, and in particular on the ways that humans adapt to and modify their environments, and how this process of ecological interaction shapes economic, demographic, political, social, and ideological aspects of people’s lives. Though the course is not focused on contemporary environmental problems of industrialized societies or the global system, the material we study provides insight into these topics, and they will be addressed directly in the final week. Ethnobiology: Plants, Animals, and People (ANTH 458) Culturally mediated relationships between human and natural environment studied in a comparative and evolutionary framework. How do peoples in diverse cultures recognize and name plants and animals and understand their relationship with nature? How is this traditional ecological knowledge applied in people' s daily lives? Introduction to Medical Anthropology and Global Health(ANTH 215) Explores influences of global processes on health of U.S. and other societies from a social-justice perspective. Emphasizes inter-relationships between cultural, environmental, social-economic, political, and medical systems that contribute to health status, outcomes, policies, and health-care delivery, focus on health disparities within and between societies and communities around the world. Web Link: Historical Ecology (ANTH 461C) This class is designed to explore the historical dimension of the environment, human adaptation, and cultural evolution. The class will critically evaluate arguments made in popular texts and the professional literature using archaeological, historical, and ethnographic evidence. We will seek to go below the surface of these accounts by looking at the primary anthropological and historical research that bears on the claims made and to develop a stronger understanding of how environment and culture have co-evolved and influenced each other in the history of human development. In the process students will come to better understand modern human-environmental dynamics as historically situated. Students can expect to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the role of human-environmental interactions in the unfolding of human history, both over long term of human history and the short term of decades and centuries. Case studies will be drawn from around the world. Web Link: Environment and Society in China (ANTH/SISEA 406) This class examines the history and current state of the environment in China from the perspective of interacting environmental cultures and ethics of the state and various local communities. Web Link: Resilience in Socio-Ecological Systems (ANTH 525/HA&S 397B) Web Link: Culture, Ecology, Politics (ANTH/ENVIR 459) Critical studies of race, class, and gender differences in environmental politics. The political-economic dimensions of ecological change. Contemporary environmental movements including the varieties of bioregionalism, deep ecology, ecofeminism, ecosocialism, environmental justice, and social ecology. Environmental Anthropology (ANTH 570) Environmental Sociology (ENVIR/ESRM/SOC 379) Social processes by which environmental conditions are transformed into environmental problems; scientific claims, popularization of science, issue-framing, problem-amplification, economic opportunism, and institutional sponsorship. Examination of social constructs such as ecosystem, community, and free-market economy. Use of human ecology to assess whether the current framing of environmental problems promotes ecological adaptability. Web Link: Growing Stuff: Ecology, Economy and Politics of Resource-Extraction Ecosystems (ENVIR 450B) This is a field-, reading-, and writing- intensive course on how humans modify and manipulate ecosystems to produce useful resources. Throughout, we emphasize a systems perspective, closely examining the ecological, economic, and political effects of the elements of each system on one another. We also pay attention to analysis of systems at different scales of space, time, and complexity. Our specific subject matter encompasses ecosystems in Washington State that are modified to produce and extract three kinds of resources: biofuels, shellfish, and milk products. Each three-week unit, including an all-day Saturday field trip, focuses on one of these three resource types. For each unit, students are required to read a series of articles, comment formally in class on some of them, go on the field trip, keep and turn in a field journal, and write a topical essay on an assignment dealing with problems of that type of resource system. |