Social Justice and Sustainability Major

This case study based course serves as the bridge experience for students completing their introductory course requirements for the ESS major or the ENV minor and who are now moving into the upper-level courses (However it is open to all interested students meeting the prerequisite). Through detailed examination of several case studies at the local, regional, and global levels, students synthesize material from introductory level courses to explore the interdisciplinary nature of today’s environmental issues. They examine what different disciplines offer to our understanding of and attempt to solve these issues.

This interdisciplinary, writing-intensive course will introduce students to environmental literary criticism, more commonly known since the 1990s as ''ecocriticism.'' As a theoretical approach to literature, eco-criticism provides a secondary lens through which to analyze primary sources; an eco-critical approach focuses on how these primary sources have ''constructed'' our relationship to the natural world through writing and narrative. In applying eco-critical theory to a selection of primary fiction, students will examine some of the major environmental themes found in literature, among others: land use, speciesism, climate change, environmental apocalypse, and the post-human. Students will explore these themes using some of the basic critical tools and methodologies of ecocriticism, not only to explore how authors write about the environment, but also to examine how the environment itself is constructed through aesthetic discourse. Students should leave the course with improved critical environmental literacy skills that will enable interdisciplinary reflection about our interactions with the natural environment.

This seminar-style course will examine the emergent field of sustainability as well as the science it employs to understand and manage the interactions between human society and the natural world. It will trace the development of our understanding of sustainability and its importance in the contemporary world. It will examine key processes driving global change in areas such as biodiversity, climate, energy use, pollution, population growth, public health, and urbanization, as well as provide an overview of the tools we use to measure sustainability. Lastly, it will explore some of the innovative approaches people are employing to address contemporary problems and effect a transition to a more sustainable society. Students in the course will apply their learning in a project that develops a solution for a particular sustainability problem on campus, locally, or somewhere on the globe.

One of the fundamental questions we all face today is how to counter the urgent challenges posed by global climate change and unequal economic development. Questions coalescing around notions of ethics, justice, equality, and human rights intersect with questions of how to shape a culturally and environmentally sustainable world. Exploring a wide range of theoretical and practical perspectives on Sustainability, Social Justice and Ethics, this cross-disciplinary, introductory course will give students multiple disciplinary frameworks to think critically and productively about the intersections between the social and the natural worlds. The course provides the gateway to the program in Social Justice and Sustainability (SJS).

The course investigates the history of the built environment as technical, social, and cultural expressions from antiquity to the contemporary age. It studies building materials and expressions in terms of their chronology, context and stylistic developments, as well as themes, theories, and innovative practices in architecture and urban design. Among other focus topics, students are encouraged to consider architecture as a cultural expression, study its semiotic potential, ascertain its role within political aesthetics, and investigate its relationship to best practices in sustainable building. The course also considers architecture’s impact on humankind, how it shapes both human habitat and the natural environment, and how it has the potential to change human minds. The course addresses all aspects and approaches of the Art Histories, Ecologies, Industries major.

Anthropologies of Art is taught on campus and in the galleries of Lugano’s museums and exhibition halls, including the Museo delle Culture, Lugano Arte e Cultura, Olgiati Collection, Fondazione Braglia and other venues. It investigates objects and images within human and cultural contexts, approaching both the physical and digital world through the deep structure of the human mind and its manifestations. In museums and exhibitions, we will analyze artifacts from all continents and discuss how they relate to social practices and exchanges in individual cultures. On campus, the course will engage with media anthropology: humans’ interactions with technology, how machines have been used to produce complex works, and what they can tell us about the status of both producer and receiver. Particular emphasis this semester will be placed on how artificial intelligence is shaping creativity and what this means for the development of the deep structure of the human mind. The course addresses all aspects and approaches of the Art Histories, Ecologies, Industries major.

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, avalanches, and pandemics, as well as wars, nuclear explosions, and cyber attacks are some examples of natural and man-made disasters that have tremendous impact on both the planet and human lives. How do humans confront and come to terms with catastrophic events? Can trauma in the wake of disaster be faithfully documented or accurately represented? Does devastation produce a tabula rasa effect on visual culture, meaning in what manner does it have the potential to destroy existing and produce new forms of representation? In addition to answering these questions from historical and contemporary perspectives, the course will probe what kinds of aesthetics and visual iconographies have proven to be effective in the raising of awareness of pending disasters and in contributing to positive change. The course addresses all aspects and approaches of the Art Histories, Ecologies, Industries major.  

The course provides students with a state-of-the-art understanding of corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The practical relevance of CSR is highlighted through various examples that show how corporations have to deal with emerging ecological and social sustainability issues and stakeholder demands. Given the challenges' underlying complexity and uncertainty as well as multi-stakeholder involvement, corporations require awareness and strategic thinking to engage with their evolving responsibilities. Drawing on examples from various sectors, students will learn about different managerial approaches to address CSR issues and meet diverging stakeholder demands when designing and implementing long-term CSR strategies.

This course approaches film from an ecocritical perspective to explore how the medium of film articulates relations between the environment and human rights. In recent decades, scholars have increasingly examined how film represents ecological issues and humans' involvement with those issues, particularly with regards to environmental disaster and climate change. The course aims to make students familiar with those debates by examining a variety of film genres -- blockbuster, documentary, animation, among others -- to offer a survey in reading film ecocritically, from a human rights’ perspective. Students will gain experience in analyzing films as texts and in applying ecocritical theory to those films and the ethical issues surrounding them, from production to narrative, and distribution to reception. Screenings, theoretical readings, class discussion, video-making and writing assignments will help students develop a critical awareness of how film tells the story of our complex relation with the environment against the backdrop of contemporary human rights regimes.

This course is designed as an introduction to the field of postcolonial studies. Readings will familiarise students with a diversity of ''world literature'' and grant an understanding of key debates in postcolonial studies. As postcolonialism is not a unified field of study, the course engages with different theoretical understandings of the term and queries what it even means to be ''postcolonial.'' When exactly does the postcolonial begin? What are the implications of using such a broad umbrella term to designate writings from around the world? Students will explore depictions of the colonial encounter and decolonisation, question the links between colonialism and globalisation, and examine constructions of East and West, Global North and Global South. Central to the course will be the themes of: power and violence; economics and class; land and nation; authenticity and development; gender and sexuality; history and memory; the politics of literature; and the politics of print culture. Students will read a diverse and broad historical selection of texts from a variety of geographical locations including, India, Kenya, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Jamaica. Literary texts will be paired with theoretical readings from such critics as Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ann McLintock, Benita Parry, Franz Fanon, and Edward Said. Although the main focus of study is literature, the course will adopt an interdisciplinary approach, understanding literary works as products of cultural, historical, social, and political circumstances. Throughout the course, students will explore how colonial power has shaped—and continues to shape—the world in which we live.

It seems almost a cliché to say that the literature of New Zealand feeds off its often wild and varied landscape. And yet - from the Māori creation narrative to Eleanor Catton’s 2013 Man Booker Prize-winning novel ''The Luminaries'' the ideas that define New Zealand's literary history are built around and shaped by the land. Against the backdrop of the narrated landscapes themselves, this course will draw on short and longer texts by authors such as Katherine Mansfield, Keri Hulme, Janet Frame, Owen Marshall, Hone Tuwhare, Catton and Kapka Kassabova, as well as on related visual culture (e.g. work by filmmaker Jane Campion), to explore the relationship between humans and the environment in New Zealand literature, focusing particularly on the central South Island and its East and West Coasts. How does this relationship negotiate notions of belonging and a ''place to stand'' in a postcolonial country where land is symbolic not only of internal, but also of external conflict? How do more recent migrants make critical use of these ideas (Kassabova)? How do the sharp edges and isolated spaces of the landscape convey the ''small violences'' of rural New Zealand (Mansfield, Frame, Marshall)? And how does literature raise the bigger questions about the destructive power of humankind (Tuwhare)?

The modern city is not only a material and social space, but also an object of cultural imagination. This course examines how cities are represented, interpreted, and reimagined through cultural texts such as literature, film, art, and media, and how these representations shape urban identities, practices, and transformations. With a central focus on social justice, the course explores how cultural narratives construct and contest questions of inclusion, exclusion, inequality, and belonging in urban contexts. Students analyze how representations of the city both reflect and influence social hierarchies, migration, displacement, and civic participation, and how cultural production can reinforce or challenge structures of power. Through engagement with cultural texts and using the city of Zurich itself as a classroom to study inclusion and exclusion and themes of social justice, students develop interdisciplinary approaches to understanding how urban imaginaries shape—and are shaped by—social and ethical dynamics.

''Human Rights'' has become a key selling point for organizations, political parties and social movements. And yet what is actually meant by the term often remains vague, and it is difficult to take the critical stance necessary to judge its significance. In this class we interrogate the term with a series of questions: what counts as ''human'' in the discourses surrounding Human Rights? What sorts of rights do individuals in fact have simply by virtue of being human? Do all humans have the same rights? Who gets to decide this? How has the definition changed over the last 200 years? To what extent is the term gendered, determined by class and racialized? And finally: how do different national settings change how we think about and act on ideas of Human Rights? This course will examine these questions by tracing ideas surrounding Human Rights in treatises, literary texts, films, debates and case studies from the Enlightenment to the present. Against the backdrop of foundational texts such as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Vindication of the Rights of Woman, declarations by the European Court of Human Rights, the African Court on Human and People's Rights, the Geneva convention and the United Nations Human Rights Commission students will consider literary and filmic works that grapple critically with the terms they lay out. Students will also consider how NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch translate the political rhetoric to apply their own interpretations of Human Rights to their field work.

The cultural debris that results from political and natural catastrophes is made up of narratives that contain both implosion and creation, wreckage and renewal. In that sense disasters mark pivotal turning points in the way we conceptualize and understand human phenomena and cultural processes in a number of disciplinary perspectives from psychoanalysis to literature, from environmental science to religion and from ethics to aesthetics. Students will read the narrative fallout in fiction, science, and film that emanate from distinct disaster zones ranging from the petrified texture of Pompeii to the generative force field of ground zero.

As long as humans have walked the planet, they have faced dangers from the environment, such as earthquakes, floods, and volcanoes. Today's technology creates new possibilities for disasters, including climate change, killer smog, and nuclear accidents. Students in this course will study the science behind natural disasters as well as examine society's preparedness for and response to these problems from an interdisciplinary perspective. It will look at both historical and recent events and consider what disasters await us in the future.

Modern human society has generated various biological, chemical, and physical hazards that threaten human health, as well as the quality of the air, water, soils, and ecosystems. This course first presents the origin and characteristics of these hazards. It then evaluates how the hazards affect the environment and human health and the disproportionate nature of these effects. It also explores the strategies and approaches that have been developed to manage risks and mitigate impacts. The course considers these issues in regional and global contexts, with a particular focus on Switzerland and Europe.

The course exposes students to a range of quantitative methods used in the environmental sciences. It will introduce students to the science of geographic information systems (GIS) and their use in understanding and analyzing environmental issues. Students will gain hands-on experience with GIS software. This course will also examine statistical methods commonly applied in quantitative environmental research. It assumes students already possess a background in statistics and environmental science.

This course examines the management of environmental resources in New Zealand and the discourse of sustainability from the island's perspective. It will focus on the challenge of conserving New Zealand's flora and fauna, as well as New Zealand's aggressive management of the non-native species that have arrived since human settlement. It will examine attempts to restore natural habitats through visits to the several restoration projects, and to Christchurch to study how environmental concerns are being incorporated into the city's recovery from the devastating 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. The course will also scrutinize the effects of tourism on the New Zealand environment and the opportunities that tourism also present. Lastly, the course will explore how the Maori culture influences environmental management in the country. (Previous coursework in environmental studies recommended.)

The 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 2017 occurred in a time characterized by a deep-seated dissatisfaction with established orders all around the globe, even in stable, prosperous, and democratic societies. The rhetoric and idea of a need to revolutionize politics can now be found, not only at the fringes, but at the center of societies. This course explores the history of the concept of political revolution from its onset in late 18th century France and its reception in the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville and Karl Marx. It will then focus on attempts to turn theory and historical experiences into practice in 20th century Russia: The failed revolution in 1905, the two revolutions in February and October 1917, the question of when the revolution ended, and eventually the ''anti-revolution'' (Richard Sakwa) of 1989-91. Against this backdrop and by analyzing a wide array of primary sources and theoretical statements, this course discusses the changing paradigms in the study of revolution in the fields of History, Cultural Studies, and Political Science.

The development of the modern nation-state is analyzed from a variety of theoretical viewpoints. The approach and methods of major social theorists are examined in detail. Formerly POL 400. Students who have previously earned credit for POL 400 cannot earn credit for POL 300.

This course is designed to familiarize students with the major currents of political philosophy. It covers a broad range of central thinkers from the major philosophers of ancient Greece up to the proponents of modern-day liberalism. The course situates political philosophies in their historical context of emergence and thereby provides an overview of the history of the central ideas which are at the heart of thinking about politics, society and justice. The reading of primary and secondary sources serves as the basis for in-depth class discussions and a critical engagement with the normative underpinnings of societal organization.

This course addresses central questions of international organization and the challenges facing the liberal international order today. Taking the perspectives of central International Relations theories, we will focus specifically on the role of Great Powers and of International Organizations in creating and upholding order at a global level. While broad in terms of topics, the course emphasizes the importance of contemporary security governance, and the security risks that threaten the international order today.

The resolution of global environmental problems has been problematic for nation-states. Hence, international cooperation is essential for exploring and applying solutions. This course will first examine the origins of environmental problems facing nations such as climate change, desertification, biodiversity, and international trade in endangered species. Further topics for investigation will include the impact of globalization and the feasibility of sustainable development in the industrial north and developing south, as well as the effectiveness of international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol and CITES.
For the travel component of the course, on-site investigations may take place in various destinations, which may change from year to year, and may include the study of policies related to natural resource conservation, sustainability, and ecotourism.

This course explores the challenges faced by the population of rural Madagascar – one of the poorest countries in the world – including limited schooling and poor learning outcomes, scarce and low-income employment opportunities, lack of basic infrastructure, high fertility, bad nutrition, poor health conditions and adverse environmental impacts. In particular, the Madagascar educational system and the reasons behind its very low quality are examined. During the travel, students are hosted by local schools and must adapt to lodging and transport conditions that, albeit still a luxury for most of the local population, are relatively closer to the lifestyle of the local population. This gives students the possibility to obtain first-hand experience of how different it is to live in low-income countries. Students have numerous opportunities to meet and bond with local students, teachers, school directors, tourist guides, and micro-entrepreneurs, allowing them to learn how rich Madagascar is in terms of cultural, natural, and human resources and to hear directly from the local youth what their needs, wishes and aspirations are. This academic travel in a remote non-touristic part of North Madagascar is organized by the Swiss NGO Boky Mamiko. Students are expected to participate in some pre-travel volunteering work and to represent the NGO in Madagascar in a professional and responsible manner. 

SJS 100 recommended prerequisite. Introductory French desirable.

The development of the modern nation-state is analyzed from a variety of theoretical viewpoints. The approach and methods of major social theorists are examined in detail. Formerly POL 400. Students who have previously earned credit for POL 400 cannot earn credit for POL 300.

Thesis proposals to be coordinated with the Program Director and Academic Advisor.