2024-2025 Catalog

FYS 58 Low-Tech Futures

More often than not "sustainability" "green technologies" and "green growth" are the main responses to the multiple crises which are today usually collected under the name "climate change." Yet, what is being sustained in these discussions? And is a continued high consumption, high energy, GDP growth-oriented future possible or feasible, even if actual renewable energy is developed? In the course students will examine an array of alternatives to high tech futures including composting, work about metabolism and ecological rift, the right to repair movement, degrowth political economies, as well as writing about environmental racism and community land trusts, among other topics. In doing so we will examine a wide variety of text and media and use them as the foundation for both developing academic writings skills and for engaging in with these issues beyond the university. Open only to first-year frosh.

Credits

4 units