The course interrogates the concept of sustainability from the critical and reflexive perspectives of STS and related social science disciplines (e.g., anthropology, history, sociology). We examine its historical origins and trajectories, the assumptions and worldviews embedded in it, and its promises and limitations. What is to be sustained, for whom, and why? Instead of treating sustainability as a self-evident category or societal goal, we unpack the politics, colonial legacies, and the underlying ideas about nature, humanity, technoscience, and the economy built into the concept and its associated practices. In addition to academic writings, we analyze policy and governance apparatuses, artistic and cultural representations, and ongoing environmental challenges, including climate change, energy transitions, nuclear waste and contamination, and warfare. Drawing on analytical frameworks such as environmental justice, care and maintenance, responsible innovation, multispecies perspectives, and the Anthropocene, while also engaging with diverse knowledge systems such as Traditional Ecological Knowledge, the course invites students to rethink sustainability and explore alternative conceptualizations and approaches. Students will conduct independent and original research on a topic of their choice, using the concepts and perspectives introduced in the course to reimagine not only sustainability but also the kinds of futures we are creating - and could create.
4 units · Letter (ABCD/NP)
The course interrogates the concept of sustainability from the critical and reflexive perspectives of STS and related social science disciplines (e.g., anthropology, history, sociology). We examine its historical origins and trajectories, the assumptions and worldviews embedded in it, and its promises and limitations. What is to be sustained, for whom, and why? Instead of treating sustainability as a self-evident category or societal goal, we unpack the politics, colonial legacies, and the underlying ideas about nature, humanity, technoscience, and the economy built into the concept and its associated practices. In addition to academic writings, we analyze policy and governance apparatuses, artistic and cultural representations, and ongoing environmental challenges, including climate change, energy transitions, nuclear waste and contamination, and warfare. Drawing on analytical frameworks such as environmental justice, care and maintenance, responsible innovation, multispecies perspectives, and the Anthropocene, while also engaging with diverse knowledge systems such as Traditional Ecological Knowledge, the course invites students to rethink sustainability and explore alternative conceptualizations and approaches. Students will conduct independent and original research on a topic of their choice, using the concepts and perspectives introduced in the course to reimagine not only sustainability but also the kinds of futures we are creating - and could create.
Offered in Autumn 2026 at Stanford University.