Environmental Histories in the Anthropocene

What is the Anthropocene and the role of history within it? What are the stakes of telling environmental histories in the 21st century? What kinds of history are needed? In this co-taught course, Linda Nash and Lynn M. Thomas approach the Anthropocene by asking students to consider how histories of colonialism, race, inequality, capitalism, and consumerism are deeply intertwined with histories of the environment. Students will study and research the environmental and social/political histories of our surrounding region—the Pacific Northwest—and one site, farther afield, in Africa. In both cases, students will collaborate on “public-facing” projects in order to reach broader audiences and to show how thinking more deeply, broadly, and comparatively about the past might lead to a better understanding of our planetary predicament.