HIST 112 PZ -Energy & Humanity: Past, Present & Future

Institution: Pitzer

Description: This course starts by examining the energy regime of mobile-foraging, sedentary-farming, and industrial models of livelihood, as these modes of livelihood are found distributed across the earth and through human time, starting some 100,000 years ago. The second section of the course looks at the perils of fossil fuels and nuclear energy, which have been the bases of humanity’s startling new relationship to energy and energy consumption beginning in the early 1800s; it also asks whether shifting from these energy sources to energy sources that are sustainable and humane will require shifting to a non-growth (i.e., a non-capitalist) economy. And too, this section of the course challenges students to investigate how each College in the consortium is a “complicit institution” in the current inhumane energy regime. For the final section of the course, students must carefully plan and initiate an activist intervention that addresses and redresses the perils of fossil fuels and/or nuclear energy. Students who choose interventions that raise legal issues will be required to show they understand and have prepared for any such consequences; only non-violent interventions will be approved.

Prerequisite(s): Please check course schedule for requirements.

For up-to-date information on current course offerings and details, please refer to the Pitzer class schedule on MyCampus2 Portal.