Course Overview
This course is an exploration of the implications of religious ideas and practices for the ways people view and value the natural world, with special attention to the global complexities of diversity, inclusion, and social justice at an advanced level. Throughout this course, students will consider such questions as: What is the religious significance of nature, if any? How have religious attitudes evolved in response to the religious crisis? What role should religion play in helping to solve the ecological crisis, if any? How can the concept of intersectionality help to mobilize a more critical and inclusive approach to religion and the environmental crisis? This course is designed for USD’s online undergraduate degree completion programs and may not be applied to the requirements for any in-person undergraduate degree program that USD offers.
Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Explain, analyze, and compare how different religions’ ideas, attitudes, and treatment of nature shape individual and cultural understandings of nature.
- Explain and analyze at an advanced level how issues relating to race, gender, and colonialism intersect with the historical and contemporary study of religion and ecology.
- Explain and analyze at an advanced level how the environmental crisis affects oneself and others differently in relation to intersecting categories such as race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic standing, and global power and position.
- Explain and analyze at an advanced level how religious ideas, attitudes, and treatment of nature intersect with racism, sexism, classism, and colonialism to reinforce and/or to interrupt the unequal distribution of the local and global impact of the ecological crisis.