History Electives 2025-2026

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings--asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass--offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

Why are African Americans so underrepresented when it comes to interest in nature, outdoor recreation, and environmentalism? In this thought-provoking study, Carolyn Finney looks beyond the discourse of the environmental justice movement to examine how the natural environment has been understood, commodified, and represented by both white and black Americans. Bridging the fields of environmental history, cultural studies, critical race studies, and geography, Finney argues that the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial violence have shaped cultural understandings of the "great outdoors" and determined who should and can have access to natural spaces.

The Intersectional Environmentalist examines the inextricable link between environmentalism, racism, and privilege, and promotes awareness of the fundamental truth that we cannot save the planet without uplifting the voices of its people -- especially those most often unheard.

Elizabeth Rusch's The Twenty-One is a gripping legal and environmental thriller that tells the story of twenty-one young people and their ongoing case against the U.S. government for denying their constitutional right to life and liberty. A rich, informative, and multifaceted read, The Twenty-One stars the young plaintiffs and their attorneys; illuminates the workings of the United States's judicial system and the relationship between government, citizens' rights, and the environment; and asks readers to think deeply about the future of our planet.

Environmental Justice: Key Issues is the first textbook to offer a comprehensive and accessible overview of environmental justice, one of the most dynamic fields in environmental politics scholarship. Written by leading international experts from a variety of professional, geographic, ethnic, and disciplinary backgrounds, its chapters combine authoritative commentary with real-life cases. Organized into four parts--approaches, issues, actors and future directions--the chapters help the reader to understand the foundations of the fi eld, including the principal concepts, debates, and historical milestones. This volume also features sections with learning outcomes, follow-up questions, references for further reading and vivid photographs to make it a useful teaching and learning tool.

Digging Earth: Extractivism and Resistance on Indigenous lands of the Americas is a collection of essays and artists’ contributions that documents the practices of extractivism on indigenous lands of the American continent, and the opposition to the politics of land appropriation and exploitation, by indigenous movements, activists and artists. Authors and artists address the extractivism of neo-colonial operations, its impact on local and indigenous communities and their environment, while tracing back its practices to settler colonialism in the Americas, ​and the vision of the natural world as ready to plunder.

Invisible No More is a groundbreaking collection of stories by Native American leaders, many of them women, who are leading the way through cultural grounding and nation-building in the areas of community, environmental justice, and economic justice. Authors in the collection come from over a dozen Native nations, including communities in Alaska and Hawaii. Chapters are grouped by themes of challenging philanthropy, protecting community resources, environmental justice, and economic justice. While telling their stories, authors excavate the history and ongoing effects of genocide and colonialism, reminding readers how philanthropic wealth often stems from the theft of Native land and resources, as well as how major national parks such as Yosemite were "conserved" by forcibly expelling Native residents. At the same time, the authors detail ways that readers might imagine the world differently, presenting stories of Native community building that offer benefits for all. Accepting this invitation to reset assumptions can be at once profound and pragmatic. For instance, wildfires in large measure result from recent Western land mismanagement; Native techniques practiced for thousands of years can help manage fire for everyone's benefit.

Climate Change is the most important ethical problem humanity is facing right now. We are in the process of harming the Earth in ways that will diminish the quality of life for many future generations. Our old human-centrism, our national tribalism, and our short-term perspectives must give way to new ways of thinking that give moral standing to other animals, and that take global and long-term perspectives. In the year 3000, humankind will look back to the present century, which dramatically altered the planet's climate and ecosystems. Will they curse us as destroyers of the earthly paradise humankind enjoyed until now? To avoid this, we need to change our approach to ethics, economics, sustainability, politics, and law. Earthling: A New Ethics for the Anthropocene addresses sustainability, economics, politics, and law as important factors in climate ethics. It aims to both help with understanding these issues, and present potential solutions for the problem.