| Interrelationship of social and environmental factors in human communities, processes of community change, impact of environmental change on human communities.
Sociology has often focused on the evolution of modern global society out of earlier, traditional tight-knit local communities. Not only did the nature of human relations and solidarity change as a result of this evolution, so did the relation to the environment. Today with environmental crisis as a central issue the question of how we might create sustainable human communities in accord with their environments, often learning from pre-modern communities, constantly arises. This course focuses on such issues. Topics addressed include, the nature of human community, social alienation, ecological crisis, ecological modernization, the treadmill of production, cars and cities, urban and rural structures, inequality, consumer society, food production and distribution, the nature and fulfillment of human needs, and environmental justice (with regard to race, class, gender, and international hierarchies). The central question is how to create a just and sustainable society. The course will also serve as an introduction to some of the questions addressed in Issues of Sociology of Environment (SOC 416).
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