Social Justice and Environmental Justice

In this course we will study contemporary environmental justice in the context of social justice movements that have preceded them, paying particular attention to how these earlier movements have influenced the challenges and tactics of environmental justice today. Drawing on the work of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, and others, we will explore the roles race, class, gender, and religion have played in confronting poverty, racism, and violence. We will then go on to examine contemporary environmental justice movements, exploring how these movements are rooted in as well as distinct from social justice movements of earlier periods. This course counts as a cognate for ENVS majors with a focus in the natural sciences.