Fall 2024 Graduate Courses
The following graduate and professional school courses in food and agriculture will be offered this fall. Undergraduate courses during the fall semester that enroll graduate students may also be of interest.
| Course Code | Course Instructor(s) | Course Name | Description | School |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| REL 619 | Varies by section | Eco-Futures: Theology, Ethics, Imagination | The looming dangers of climate change, especially given the inadequacy of the global political response, are now evident. Many of those who are paying attention find themselves feeling overwhelmed, powerless, and hopeless in the face of increasing natural disasters, rapidly disappearing species, and compounding environmental injustices. This class begins from these challenges. It asks: Can we sustain hope in a just and sustainable ecological future? Should we sustain such a hope? If so, what would such a future look like? Can we imagine a future beyond fossils fuels, beyond exploitative and extractivist relations among humans and between humans and the more-than-human world? Can we imagine a decolonial future, a future of multispecies justice? How do these hopes and visions interact with ultimate religious hopes? How should these hopes and visions shape our actions and emotions in this moment? We approach these issues by reading theological and ethical works together with future-oriented speculative fiction: sci-fi, Afrofuturism, Indigenous futurism, solarpunk, hopepunk. We assess the speculative futures theologically and ethically while also allowing these speculative futures to shape our theological and ethical visions. There are no specific prerequisites for this course, but introductory courses in theology and ethics are recommended. Area II and Area V. | YSD |
| HIST 844 | Daniel Magaziner | Human and Non-Human in African History | This graduate reading seminar surveys recent scholarship on human interactions with non-humans in African history. Topics to be considered include human/animal interactions, histories of technology across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, histories of urbanization (encompassing histories of popular and mechanical culture as well as histories of human/pathogen interactions),and how human beings have responded to their circumstances through mediation with non-human objects, whether as “fetish,” as “art,” or as “technology.” | FAS |
| SBS 594 | Rafael Perez-Escamilla | Maternal-Child Public Health Nutrition | This course examines how nutrition knowledge gets translated into evidence-informed maternal-child food and nutrition programs and policies. Using multisectorial and interdisciplinary case-study examples, the course highlights (1) socioeconomic, cultural, public health, and biomedical forces that determine maternal-child nutrition well-being; and (2) how this understanding can help shape effective programs and policies capable of improving food and nutrition security of women and children. Topics include maternal-child nutrition programs, food assistance and conditional cash-transfer programs, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. | YSPH |
| ENV 723 | Kealoha Freidenburg | Wetlands Ecology, Conservation, and Management | Wetlands are ubiquitous. Collectively they cover 370,000 square miles in the United States and globally encompass more than five million square miles. Most points on a map are less than one kilometer from the nearest wetland. Yet wetlands are nearly invisible to most people. In this course we explore wetlands in all of their dimensions, including the critical services they provide to other systems, the rich biodiversity they harbor, and their impact on global climate. Additionally, wetlands are linchpin environments for scientific policy and regulation. The overarching aim of the course is to connect what we know about wetlands from a scientific perspective to the ways in which wetlands matter for people. | YSE |
| EVST 323 | Kealoha Freidenburg | Wetlands Ecology, Conservation, and Management | Wetlands are ubiquitous. Collectively they cover 370,000 square miles in the United States and globally encompass more than five million square miles. Most points on a map are less than one kilometer from the nearest wetland. Yet wetlands are nearly invisible to most people. In this course we explore wetlands in all of their dimensions, including the critical services they provide to other systems, the rich biodiversity they harbor, and their impact on global climate. Additionally, wetlands are linchpin environments for scientific policy and regulation. The overarching aim of the course is to connect what we know about wetlands from a scientific perspective to the ways in which wetlands matter for people. | YSE |