Dr. Katie Schweighofer, Dickinson, Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Ecofeminism to Environmental Justice: Theories of Green World Making
As part of the 2024 Valley and Ridge workshop run through ºìÐÓÖ±²¥app’s Center for Sustainability Education, I have been able to develop my syllabus for an advanced topics course in WGSS, “Ecofeminism to Environmental Justice: Theories of Green World Making.” I hope to teach this course in the 2025-2026 school year.
Course description:
This course introduces theories that intersect with and underpin environmentalism, linking it ideologically with other social justice movements, with a particular focus on understanding feminist sustainability discourse. From early intersections of first and second wave feminism with preservationist, back to the land, and nascent environmental movements, the questions and struggles associated with protecting and valuing “earth” have long been gendered. Gendered assumptions about roles, characteristics, power, and value have infused the language used to describe “earth” and “nature.” The challenge of climate change presents obstacles of knowledge, of power and politics, and of culture and meaning, all of which are highly gendered. This course asks, how is gender and feminist ideology connected to environmentalism and sustainability? How are cultural sustainability and reduction of gender injustice critical to the construction of climate-positive interventions? And how might feminist theoretical contributions like intersectionality and standpoint theory enable us to build a stronger, greener, and more equitable future for everyone?
Our readings will introduce ecofeminist theories and the modern inheritors of those early visions. We will look at several specific applied sites, including food, reproduction, and identity as they appear in these discourses. In addition to academic and theoretical reading, we will also use a handful of short stories and novels exploring the overlap in feminist and environmentalist ideas.