Satirical and dystopian works often illuminate pressing issues, present humorous scenarios, and/or portray fantastic visions of post-apocalyptic worlds. While we are drawn to the fictional escape these works can provide, through them we are also encouraged to question our own realities and ponder both the best and worst humanity has to offer.
When you get up to give a talk in front of your peers, your body responds just like an antelope being chased by a lion. Stress is an adaptive physiological response to stimuli that present an immediate threat to an organism present in all vertebrates. In humans this survival mechanism can be hijacked, wreaking havoc on the body and mind. This course will adopt an interdisciplinary approach to explore the science behind the relationship between stress, brain, body, and behavior. We will cover the biological mechanisms of stress and the neural pathways that coordinate the stress response.
Do you own pets? Perhaps it feels more like they own you. What do our current relationships with animals look like and how do they affect us? As we begin to treat animals such as dogs and cats as family members, what issues will arise and how will we resolve them? This class will focus on our interactions with other species, starting with domestication before moving on to the many ways our life styles have impacted wildlife. With more and more species affected by climate change and habitat loss, do we have a moral responsibility to address their suffering?
Gil Scott-Heron's 1970 poem and song-"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"-expressed Black rage as well as criticized consumerism and the Nixon presidency. His phrase is also an apt phrase to characterize the uniqueness of the Seventies. To some, the decade merely filled the gap between the idealistic Sixties and the shallow "Big Eighties." However, a reassessment of the Seventies yields a different story: consider the contributions of the anti-war movement to ending the Vietnam War.
Early Canada, 1534-1867. After laying eyes upon the eastern coast of Canada in May 1534, the French explorer Jacques Cartier remarked that it resembled the “land that God gave to Cain.” Despite Cartier ’s initial misgivings, Canada presented numerous opportunities to Europeans, as it had for the First Nations.
Why does looking at the past so often lead people to believe that humans are inherently violent and wars are inevitable? How have people used nonviolent means to respond to conflicts and social injustice? What is necessary to create and maintain peace, beyond simply trying to minimize violence? How are animals and the environment relevant to peace for humans? To answer these and other questions, we'll study historical and recent examples of nonviolent activism, movements, and other efforts to promote peace. We'll also examine
Students will learn an internationally recognized 80-hr 'hands-on' curriculum on how to design human systems that mimic natural systems, using a minimum of energy and resources, and creating real abundance and social justice. We will discuss and utilize permaculture (ecological design) ethics, principles and practices to design integrated systems. As we learn to read the landscape, we will explore solutions to climate change on the home and community scale. Students will gain empowerment with hands on skills redesigning the campus Permaculture Garden during the practicum.
In our universal search for purpose and meaning, we can all draw inspiration from the stories of great lives lived. The Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most widely read wisdom texts, tells us that we all have a “sacred duty”, born out of our unique qualities and particular circumstances. In this class, we will look at the “sacred duties” of eco-pioneers: practical visionaries whose life work helps us reframe our relationship with nature and develop solutions to our most pressing environmental problems.
In this course, we will look at many kinds of texts that focus on children and the raising of children in Victorian Britain. We will read some children’s poetry and picture books, two Victorian children’s novels (Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess), and two novels written for adults whose tales are centered on a child growing up in the midst of the Victorian world (Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations). To understand the context of these stories, we will conduct and share research projects in