← Back to course website “Global Challenges and Sustainable Futures”
Here you can find the weekly readings that you need to prepare before we come together in the course. Please read and watch all the articles, book excerpts and videos that you can find under “Mandatory Reading/Watching”. Please keep the guiding questions for each week in mind when reading. You don’t need to answer the questions on your own, they just serve as the basis for discussions in class. Under “Further Reading”, you can find other material that you can dig into, if you are interested in the topic.
Nov 7: Workshop 2: Whose vision is it?
Mandatory Reading/Watching:
- Excerpts from ‘Chapter 1: Evolution of a Space Cadet’, In: Womack, Ytasha L. 2013. Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture Afrofuturism (p.5-11, 15-24)
- Brodsky, A., Kauder-Nalebuff, R., 2015. The feminist utopia project: fifty-seven visions of a wildly better future. New York: The Feminist Press, pp. 5-11.
Further Reading/Watching:
- Inayatullah, S., 2005. Causal Layered Analysis — Deepening the future. Questioning the future: methods and tools for organizational and societal transformation, (7), pp.1–22.
- The rest of the book of Brodsky and R. Kauder-Nalebuff. 2015. The feminist utopia project: fifty-seven visions of a wildly better future. Available at: http://bit.ly/2swg4NV (E-book on UU Library). E.g. ‘Interview with Chloe Angyal’ is ‘What would rom-com look like in a feminist future?’
Nov 14: We don’t care about young folks? Thinking about future generations
Guiding Questions:
- How can future generations be considered in present politics? Should they be (and why)?
- What challenges do the growing marginalizations of young people pose for democracy?
Mandatory Reading/Watching:
Context:
- Arrhenius, G., 2015. Climate Change, Risk, and Population Ethics. In: Global Warming, Global Ethics. Shiizukobundoshobo Co. Ltd.
- Caney, S., 2009. Climate change and the Future: Discounting for Time, Wealth, and Risk. Journal of Social Philosophy, 40(2), pp.163–186.
Cases:
- About Brexit – Team Future, Pottinger, L., and Hall, S.M., 2017. ‘Have you heard that young people are RECLAIMing their future?’: Towards a bold, ethical and hopeful politics of Brexit and beyond. Local Economy, 32(3), pp.257–263.
- About the Ombudsman of Future Generations in Hungary – Ambrusné, É.T., 2010. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations of Hungary and his Impact. Intergenerational Justice Review, 10(1), pp.18–24.
Reading/Watching added by the Student-led Session group:
- About Brexit – Website of the RECLAIM group (from the authors of the Mandatory Reading on Brexit)
- About the Ombudsman of Future Generations – The Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations. FuturePolicy.org.
- Explanatory picture about the Ombudsman. Futurejustice.org.
- Beckman, L., Uggla, F., 2016. An Ombudsman for Future Generations. Legitimate and Effective?. In: González-Ricoy, I., Gosseries, A. (ed.). Institutions For Future Generations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 117-134. (Reading Abstract and Conclusion is enough)
Further Reading/Watching:
Nov 21: Seminar 2: Literature Reflection. Rewinding 2067: Change, Power and Backcasting
Guiding Questions: see here
Mandatory Reading/Watching/Listening:
- Podcast (Listen from 03:15 to 13:10): Brand, R., Amstell, S., 2017. #010 Plant Based Diet & Plant Based Consciousness. In: Under the Skin with Russell Brand. 10 May.
- Krznaric, R., 2007. How Change Happens. Interdisciplinary Perspectives for Human Development. Oxfam, pp. 30-35.
- Dreborg, K. H., 1996. Essence of Backcasting. Futures, 28:9, pp. 813-816.
Further Reading/Watching:
- Ishihara, S., Marcos Valls, A., 2017. Back from the Future We Want: backcasting as a pedagogical practice towards sustainable futures. In: Corcoran, P.B., Weakland, J.P., Wals, A.E.J. (eds.). Envisioning futures for environmental and sustainability education. Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers, pp. 333-344.
- Quist, J., 2007. Chapter 2: An Exploration of Backcasting and Related Approaches. In: Backcasting for a sustainable future: The impact after 10 years. Delft, the Netherlands:Eburon Academic Publishers, pp. 17-31.
- Krznaric, R., 2007. How Change Happens. Interdisciplinary Perspectives for Human Development. Oxfam. (Whole Report, if you’re interested).
Nov 28: Who run(s) the world? Race, Gender, Class and Justice
Guiding Questions:
- Who run(s) the world?
- How are race, gender and class interlinked? What is intersectionality?
- How will we think about race, gender and class in the future?
- How is the environment connected to questions of race, gender and class? Whom do we consider, when we talk about the environment, and whom not?
Mandatory Reading/Watching:
Context:
- Petitt, A., 2016. Women’s cattle ownership in Botswana. Rebranding gender relations?. Doctoral thesis. Uppsala: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, pp. 41-48.
- Ratcliff, A., 2017. Just 8 men own same wealth as half the world. Oxfam, 16 Jan.
- Hudson, C., Rönnblom, M., 2008. The Woman-Made City. Feminist Utopia or Practical Possibility?. In: Denefle, S. (ed). Utopies féministes et expérimentations urbaines. Rennes: PUR, pp. 73-87.
Cases:
- About the Dakota Access Pipeline – McClennen, S.A., 2016. #NoDAPL is #NativeLivesMatter: The protests at Standing Rock are not only about environmentalism, they’re about racism. Salon, 6 Nov.
- About Beyoncé and black feminism – Tinsley, O.E., 2014. Black Feminism Lite? More Like Beyoncé Has Taught Us Black Feminism Light. Huffington Post, 7 Nov.
Reading/Watching added by the Student-led Session group:
- Website about the Dakota Access Pipeline to click around a bit
- Campbell, P.B., 2017. ‘Those are our Eiffel Towers, our pyramids’: Why Standing Rock is about much more than oil. The Guardian, 15 May.
- Killermann, S., 2012. 5 Reasons Why So Many People Believe Feminism Hates Men and Why They’re Not True. it’s pronounced METROsexual.
Further Reading/Watching:
- Strömquist, L., 2013. End Extreme Wealth. (Comic strip done for the website of the band The Knife).
- Cho, S., Williams Crenshaw, K., McCall, L., 2013. Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis. Signs, 38:4 (Intersectionality: Theorizing Power, Empowering Theory), pp. 785-810.
- Weaver, H., 2013. “Becoming in Kind”: Race, Class, Gender, and Nation in Cultures of Dog Rescue and Dogfighting. American Quarterly, 65:3, pp. 689-709.
- Trageser, L., 2017. Refusing to be Silenced and Demanding Respect: A Case Study About Black Female Sexuality in Popular Culture Focusing on Beyoncé Knowles. Philologia, 9.