From Fiction to Reality: Climate, Justice, and Building Resilient Societies

This upper-level seminar-style course examines environmental sustainability and social justice through interdisciplinary discussion of speculative and dystopian narratives. Drawing on students prior coursework in Environmental Studies and other majors and minors, the course uses fiction and related texts to analyze the climate crisis, inequality, resilience, activism, faith, and environmental change. Students will connect themes from authors including Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, N. K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, Kim Stanley Robinson, Vandana Shiva, and Paul Hawken to contemporary social and environmental challenges. Emphasizing dialogue and collaborative analysis, the seminar asks how collective action, imagination, and social networks can help build socio-ecologically-just futures.