image by Matthew Raboin, UW Agroecology masters graduate, class of 2010

About the Course

How shall we live? What is just? What is sacred? Where can we find truth? How can we best steward the world and care for all its inhabitants—human and non-human alike?

In this special topic course, we take a sociological look at the history and interrelationship of three of the most culturally powerful realms of reasoning on these deep and abiding questions – nature, faith, and community – and their implications for how we understand environmental and social justice.  From Buddha to Darwin, from Lao-Tzu to Thoreau, from Mohamed to Einstein, from Gilgamesh to the Bible, we will consider the past, present, and future of these great ideas in their social, and therefore political, context.

Check your absolutes at the door, however. You can pick them up again on your way out, but during the class we will strive as best mere humans can to be open-minded about the thoughts of others and ourselves. As well, the ultimate physical or metaphysical correctness of these ideas are questions we leave for outside the classroom. Our concern is for their social origin and for the social use to which we put them.

We will read widely, skipping like stones across the shimmering pool of millennia of mulling these matters. We will bounce our minds off samples of the writings of the ancients—including the ancient Sumerians, Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Chinese, Mayans, and more—as well as those of Enlightenment and Post-Enlightenment thinkers. And we will be guided along the way by the insights of historians and sociologists of religion, nature, and science. 

Each week of the course will begin with a lecture on Tuesday, introducing the week’s focus and sketching its social and historical milieu. For the second class session, each student will attend a discussion section to develop their own responses, in dialogue with others, based on their weekly intellectual journal.  The course will also include a midterm exam and a final exam, each with an in-class and a take-home component.

The Students

This course is open to all interested undergraduate and graduate students. Some preparation in sociology is advisable, though, as this is a 500-level course.

The Instructor

Michael Bell, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology

The Teaching Assistant

Kerem Morgul, Department of Sociology

The Times and Places

Lecture:

     Tu 4:30-5:45 — 351 Moore Hall


Sections:

     Th 3-4:15 — 38 Agricultural Hall

     Th 4:30-5:45 — 10 Agricultural Hall

     F 1-2:15 — 10 Agricultural Hall

     F 2:30-3:45 — 38 Agricultural Hall

The Syllabus

The course syllabus for 2015 is HERE.

The TA syllabus for the discussion sections will be HERE.