<p>Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the study of natural and built environments often involved visions of the future along with proposals for social and political change: narratives and images of what better futures might look like, and how worse futures might be avoided. Implicitly or explicitly, these narratives of future environments are enmeshed with underlying assumptions about what the best social order would be, how a more just society might function, and how human communities should relate to nonhuman species and systems. Focus on connection between stories about urban, ecological, and planetary futures; technologies involved in their creation, use, and maintenance; and underlying assumptions that shape them. Students apply narrative analysis and reasoning about social justice to stories about future environments and techno-social innovation. P/NP or letter grading.</p>

English

College of Letters and Science

General Education — Philosophical & Linguistic Analysis (Arts & Humanities)

General Education — Visual & Performance Arts Analysis & Practice (Arts & Humanities)

General Education — Literacy & Cultural Analysis (Arts & Humanities)

ENGL 32 - Future Environments: Cities, Ecologies, Planets

Future Environments: Cities, Ecologies, Planets

Familiarity with major story patterns  that have been deployed to envision techno-social futures and how those ideas and stories have been adapted as well as criticized by diverse communities in and beyond the U.S. 

Recognition of the complex relationships between technological change and cultural differences as well as social structures of inequality, privilege, and justice

Recognition of different movements in the imagination of future environments——from apocalyptic visions and disaster narratives to progress stories and visions of utopia—and the problems, ideas, and stories that have defined them

Ability to identify and evaluate literary and artistic forms that appear in fictional and nonfiction films and texts about techno-social futures

Development of your own technological cultures toolkit to include honed skills in multimedia storytelling, analytical writing, and collaborative research and writing.

General Catalog

Future Environments: Cities, Ecologies, Planets

ENGL 32

5 units