This critical theory seminar examined current trends in ecological thinking via a close reading of texts and examination of how ideas in those texts manifest in visual art, literature and other culture. A key question was comparing current thinking in the Western tradition with Amerindian/indigenous approaches to the question of ecology and our relationship to the so-called natural world and to each other. We closely examined the trends of object oriented ontology, social or political ecology and non-Western epistemologies. How have artists and other cultural producers consciously or unconsciously played with, advanced or critiqued the way theorists see ourselves in the world as we face multiple ecological crises? Open to graduate students only, unless permission granted by instructor.
