This is a graduate course on the concept of 'nature' in social theory and history. Against the presupposition that social theory has traditionally lacked a conceptual engagement with nature, this class will chart the genealogies of environmental thought that have developed within and through wider transformations of twentieth-century political economy, technology, and politics. The aim of this course is to both resituate contemporary calls for a critical theory of nature that has remained largely indifferent to its own conceptual and historical antecedents; while also developing new research on the history and politics of nature in a world transformed by climate catastrophe.
