Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization

CEGU 30061. Ancient Landscapes I. 100 Units.

This is a two-course sequence that introduces students to theory and method in landscape studies and the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to analyze archaeological, anthropological, historical, and environmental data. Course one covers the theoretical and methodological background necessary to understand spatial approaches to landscape and the fundamentals of using ESRI's ArcGIS software, and further guides students in developing a research proposal. Course two covers more advanced GIS-based analysis (using vector, raster, and satellite remote sensing data) and guides students in carrying out their own spatial research project. In both courses, techniques are introduced through the discussion of case studies (focused on the archaeology of the Middle East) and through demonstration of software skills. During supervised laboratory times, the various techniques and analyses covered will be applied to sample archaeological data and also to data from a region/topic chosen by the student.

Instructor(s): Mehrnoush Soroush     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 36710, GISC 20061, NEAA 30061, NEAA 20061, GISC 30061, ANTH 26710, CEGU 20061

CEGU 30062. Ancient Landscapes II. 100 Units.

This is a two-course sequence that introduces students to theory and method in landscape studies and the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to analyze archaeological, anthropological, historical, and environmental data. Course one covers the theoretical and methodological background necessary to understand spatial approaches to landscape and the fundamentals of using ESRI's ArcGIS software, and further guides students in developing a research proposal. Course two covers more advanced GIS-based analysis (using vector, raster, and satellite remote sensing data) and guides students in carrying out their own spatial research project. In both courses, techniques are introduced through the discussion of case studies (focused on the archaeology of the Middle East) and through demonstration of software skills. During supervised laboratory times, the various techniques and analyses covered will be applied to sample archaeological data and also to data from a region/topic chosen by the student.

Instructor(s): Mehrnoush Soroush     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): NEAA 20061
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 36711, NEAA 20062, GISC 30062, GISC 20062, ANTH 26711, NEAA 30062, CEGU 20062

CEGU 30151. Environmental Histories of the Pacific. 100 Units.

The Pacific Ocean is the world's largest geographic feature. It spans 64 million square miles, is encircled by 83,000 miles of coastline, contains 25,000 islands, and is home to one-third of the Earth's human population. European and American explorers of the 18th century deemed the Pacific an immense and restrictive void; historians of the late-20th century echoed such sentiments when referring to the Pacific as "Earth's Empty Quarter." Recent scholarship has sought to reframe the Pacific as a constellation of overlapping "worlds" by charting interconnected patterns of human mobility, ecological exchange, economic development, and environmental destruction. Focusing on the past 250 years, this discussion-based research seminar will adopt micro-historical, comparative, and transnational methods to examine the environmental histories of three Pacific worlds: Australasia; Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia; and the Northeastern Pacific. Throughout the course, we will investigate how race, ethnicity, gender, class, politics, and health shaped and were shaped by large-scale socio-environmental processes across these regions. Thematic topics include Traditional Environmental Knowledge; Euro-American exploration and settler colonization; environmental extraction and degradation; agricultural, industrial, and urban development; labor migration and commercial growth; disease transmission and demographic change; and imperial expansion, scientific experimentation, and tourism.

Instructor(s): Christopher Kindell     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 22151, GLST 25151, HIPS 20151, HIST 25030, HLTH 20151, RDIN 20151, CEGU 20151

CEGU 30160. Cities on Screen. 100 Units.

How do the movies shape our collective imagination about cities? Why do we so often turn to them for visions of disaster and dystopia, on the one hand, or a futuristic utopia on the other? How has film responded to cities in the past, and how can it help investigate our present urban condition? How can film be understood as a tool for exploring what a city is? In this seminar, we will watch and discuss feature films in which the built environment or urban issues play important roles. Students will improve their film literacy -- learning not just what a film does but how it does it -- and understand applications for film in the analysis of social, spatial, temporal, and immersive phenomena, as well as how it can help inspire and communicate design more effectively.

Instructor(s): Evan Carver     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 20160, GLST 20160, ARCH 20160

CEGU 30180. Writing the City. 100 Units.

How do great writers convey sense-of-place in their writing? What are the best ways to communicate scientific and social complexity in an engaging, accessible way? How can we combine academic rigor with journalistic verve and literary creativity to drive the public conversation about urgent environmental and urban issues? These are just some of the questions explored in WRITING THE CITY, an intensive course dedicated to honing our skills of verbal communication about issues related to the built and natural environments. Students will research, outline, draft, revise, and ultimately produce a well-crafted piece of journalistic writing for publication in the program's new annual magazine, Expositions. Throughout the quarter we will engage intensely with a range of authors of place-based writing exploring various literary and journalistic techniques, narrative devices, rhetorical ​approaches, and stylistic strategies.

Instructor(s): Evan Carver     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): At least one CEGU or ARCH course; or one PBPL, ARTH, ANTH, or SOCI course with an urban focus; or instructor permission. Please contact ehc@uchicago.edu with questions.
Note(s): Restricted to 3rd and 4th years.
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 20180, CEGU 20180

CEGU 30450. Breathing Matters: Poetics and Politics of Air. 100 Units.

The participants in this seminar will be asked to re-examine the notion of "inspiration" in its aesthetic and historical senses, revisiting age-old textual and arts practices based on tropes of channeling, as well as contemporary practices based on embodied, performative and geopoetic notions of interconnection, circulation, receptivity and transmutation-including practices that reflect and refute the denial of the innate interconnectivity of beings. We will delve into the workings of air as an animating element that bridges and binds individuals to both internal and external forces-controllable and uncontrollable, state-sponsored and ambient, or what we would call "natural" under anthropocene conditions. We will examine the modern and contemporary politicization of air as a commons, and will apply our research to the analysis and critique of industrial and post-industrial landscapes. The imagination of air itself becomes central to thinking about utopian or dystopian collectivities in a time of respiratory crisis. Authors to be studied will include Coleridge, Shelley, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mira Holzbachová, Ant Farm, Meredith Monk, M. NourbeSe Philip, Mladen Dolar, Cecila Vicuña, Adriana Cavarero, Jordan Scott, JJJJJerome Ellis, Achille Mbembe, and more. (20th/21st)

Instructor(s): Jennifer Scappettone     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 20450, ENGL 50430, ENGL 20450, CMLT 50430

CEGU 30658. Collective Action and Social Change. 100 Units.

What makes collective action possible, and what determines its success or failure? This course examines how individuals and groups address common problems, pursue shared interests, and seek change within and across social, political, economic, and environmental domains. Through engagement with foundational theories and contemporary research on collective action and social movements, the course explores why collective action emerges, how it is organized and sustained, and the conditions that permit or prohibit success. The course is anchored by questions of power, inequality, culture and identity, political opportunity, the challenges of coordinating action in complex societies, as well as the consequences of coordinated efforts. Students will gain an understanding of collective action as a social process while developing an analytical skillset to critically examine collective efforts to maintain, contest, or transform social systems.

Instructor(s): B. Priem     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30658, SOCI 20658, CEGU 20658

CEGU 30700. Global Health, Environment, and Indigenous Futures. 100 Units.

The global coronavirus pandemic has made evident the significance of ecological (im)balances for the well-being of societies. The relationship between structural inequalities, changing environments and health, especially for historically and socio-economically marginalized communities, is now well established. At the same time, a growing body of literature links the material conditions of marginalized communities-for instance, spaces of dwelling and conditions of labor-to health status, globally. Based on a set of interdisciplinary literature arranged through anthropological theories, this course will critically engage with notions of health and well-being for indigenous communities, tracing injustices that stem histories of racial, caste- and ethnicity-based, and environmental exclusions. The readings are organized around one central question: What does it mean to be indigenous in a changing planet where social, political, and economic systems are marked by enduring legacies of systemic violence? This graduate and undergraduate level course will introduce contexts within which structural exclusions lead to ill-health and loss of well-being among indigenous communities across the globe. The aim is to develop critical thinking on the political economy and political ecologies of indigenous health as imbricated with issues of social, economic, and environmental justice.

Instructor(s): Sanghamitra Das
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 20700, CEGU 20700, SALC 26501, ANTH 30700, SALC 32704, RDIN 30700, RDIN 20700, CHDV 20700, CHDV 30750

CEGU 30702. Introduction to Environmental Ethics. 100 Units.

This course will examine answers to four questions that have been foundational to environmental ethics: Are religious traditions responsible for environmental crises? To what degree can religions address environmental crises? Does the natural world have intrinsic value in addition to instrumental value to humans, and does the type of value the world has imply anything about human responsibility? What point of view (anthropocentrism, biocentrism, theocentrism) should ground an environmental ethic? Since all four of the above questions are highly contested questions, we will examine a constellation of responses to each question. During the quarter we will read texts from a wide variety of religious and philosophical perspectives, though I note that the questions we are studying arose out of the western response to environmental crises and so often use that language. Some emphasis will be given to particularly influential texts, thinkers, and points of view in the scholarship of environmental ethics. As the questions above indicate, the course prioritizes theoretical issues in environmental ethics that can relate to many different applied subjects (e.g. energy, water, animals, climate change) rather than emphasizing these applied issues themselves. Taking this focus will give you the background necessary to work on such issues later.

Instructor(s): Sarah Fredericks     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates may petition to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): RETH 30702

CEGU 31114. Medieval Indian Cities. 100 Units.

This seminar examines the fascinating, surprising, and confounding ways in which cities developed in "medieval" South Asia-a millennium long period comprising roughly ca. 500 to 1500 CE. Some of these cities, such as Delhi, have grown to become modern metropolises. Some others, such as Hampi (one of the largest cities on earth at the height of their fame), have become abandoned archaeological towns. What social, political, religious, and mercantile networks shaped their development? How did people-the elites and the so-called subalterns-live in these cities? And what can a serious study of this distant period tell us about the pressures that shaped medieval built environments and that continue to affect cities today? Among the cities to be discussed are Delhi, Surat, Thanjavur, Hampi (Vijayanagara), Warangal, Daulatabad, and Gwalior. Final assignment could take the shape of an academic paper, or, in consultation with the instructor, a creative assignment that imagines an aspect of urban life in a medieval Indian city. Seminar is directed towards students with interests in medieval history, religious history, South Asian history, urban history, and architectural history.

Instructor(s): M. Manohar     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): This course fulfills the following requirements in the ARTH major and minor: Asian pre-1800
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 21014, SALC 31014, ARTH 31014, MDVL 21014, SALC 21014, ARTH 21014, CEGU 21114

CEGU 31501. Theory and Practice in Environmental Organizing and Activism. 100 Units.

This course explores how organizations-civic, private, governmental-working in the field of environmental advocacy construct, deploy and are shaped by distinct discourses governing relationships between nature and society. The environment is a field of social action in which organizations attempt to effect change in large domains like resource conservation, access, stewardship, and a basic right to environmental quality in everyday life. The work of effecting change in these complex domains can assume a variety of forms including public policy (through the agencies of the state), private enterprise (through the agency of the market), 'third sector' advocacy (through the agency of nonprofit organizations) and social activism (through the agency of social movements and community organizations). State, market, civil society and social movement organizations are where ideas are transmitted from theory to practice and back again in a recursive, dialectical process. These contrasting forms of organization have different histories, wellsprings and degrees of social power. Moreover, they bring different epistemologies to their claims about being legitimate custodians of nature-that is to say they can be understood genealogically. As such, organizations working to effect environment change are at once animated by and constitutive of distinct discourses governing the relationships between nature and society. The course explores how those distinct discourses are associated with a suite of different organizational realms of social action; the goal is trying to connect the dots between discursive formations and organizational forms.

Instructor(s): Mary Beth Pudup     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 21501, SSAD 41501, RDIN 21501, GLST 21501, CEGU 21501, SSAD 21501

CEGU 31720. Climate Change and Human Health. 100 Units.

Climate change is one of the greatest global health threats facing the world in the 21st century. Through this course, students will gain foundational knowledge in the health effects of climate change. We will begin with several lectures on climate science as it related to the patterns of weather extremes experienced by populations. We will then identify the varying health outcomes linked to different climate-related exposures, emphasizing the specific impacts in vulnerable and high-risk populations. Specific topics include the effects of air pollution, extreme heat and heat waves, droughts, tropical cyclones, changes in vector habitats, and sea-level rise. Finally, we will discuss strategies for public health practitioners to aid communities in preventing or alleviating these adverse effects.

Instructor(s): K. Burrows     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): PBHS 32100 or STAT 22000 or introductory statistics
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 21720, HLTH 21720, PBHS 31720, CCSG 22501

CEGU 32100. Disease, Health, and the Environment in Global Context. 100 Units.

Recent concerns about infectious diseases and the environmental determinants of health have attracted renewed attention to previous accounts of disease, many of which have significantly shaped human political, social, economic, and environmental history. Former examples include: respiratory diseases and sexually transmitted infections among Indigenous communities during the age of European exploration and colonial settlement; nutritional deficiencies resulting from the forced relocation and labor of enslaved Africans throughout the Atlantic World; "filth" diseases and urban sanitary reform during the Bacteriological Revolution; zoonotic diseases and pest control campaigns during imperial expansion projects across the Caribbean; and cancers borne of industrial pollutants in the modern era. Through readings, in-class discussions, and written assignments that culminate in a final project, students in this course will explore how natural and human-induced environmental changes have altered our past experiences with disease and future prospects for health. First, we will examine how early writers understood the relationship between geography, environment, hereditary constitution, race, gender, and human health. We will then analyze the symbiotic relationship among pathogens, human hosts, and their physical environments. Finally, we will explore how social factors and human interventions have influenced the distribution of infectious diseases and environmental health risks.

Instructor(s): Christopher Kindell     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 22101, HIST 25033, CEGU 22100, HIPS 22210, RDIN 22100, HLTH 22100

CEGU 32146. Ecology & Governance in Israel and the Middle East. 100 Units.

Ecological governance has emerged as an aspirational concept in recent years in political science, philosophy, and anthropology in response to concerns over the increasing likelihood of an unprecedented global ecological crisis as a result of human driven climate change. This course will trace the conceptual genealogy of ecological governance in Western and Eastern political theory and environmental history as it explores the political ecologies of Israel and the Middle East. In so doing, the course embarks from the assertion that environmental justice and the struggle for justice overall are inseparable challenges. Of central concern will be to understand how Israel's politics, culture, and history technological development together with its particular environmental conditions provide conceptual and methodological interventions into current and historical articulations of ecological governance. Note: Enrollment in this class is by consent only. Please request via the enrollment site.

Instructor(s): Michael Fisch
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 32146

CEGU 32211. Riding about the South Side. 100 Units.

This course is based on bicycling through the South Side neighborhoods surrounding the University of Chicago. There will be some readings, but the primary input will be from riding-from seeing things at street level and speaking with people who are committed to living in places that often have been abandoned by others. We can read and theorize about the community surrounding us, but the premise in this class is that our work should begin with experience in that world, with direct contact and in conversation. My approach in this class is less to teach than to lead you to where things are waiting to be learned and to people who can teach you about their world better than I. Some of the themes we will cover include land rights and exploitation, architecture, town planning, placemaking, urban farming and ecology, sustainability, grass roots organization, labor rights and exploitation, immigration, social work, and street art. Each ride is organized around a set of key concerns and includes a conversation with a local insider who can help us better understand them.

Instructor(s): William Nickell
Note(s): This course includes weekend morning bicycle rides 2.5-3 hours in length. Weekend flexibility is required, rides happen on either Saturday or Sunday dependent on weather conditions.
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 22211, ARCH 22211, KNOW 22211, CHST 22211

CEGU 32301. Digital Geographies of Climate Justice. 100 Units.

Struggles for climate and environmental justice are increasingly mediated by digital technologies and geospatial data, especially in the Global South. In Amazonia, for example, the plight of indigenous groups bearing the brunt of ecological dispossession and political violence by deforestation is frequently represented through remotely-sensed data showing time-series of canopy loss; in turn, these data are often prompted, groundtruthed, and mobilized by indigenous communities and affiliated activists in legal and political campaigns. In parallel, across the world ocean, countries across the Global South- from Papua New Guinea and Ecuador to Ghana- are partnering with watch-dog organizations using satellite imagery and GPS data to track illegal fishing and human rights abuses at sea, acting as an auxilliary ecological police force to identify and provide data to prosecute offending vessels. The proliferation of these digital geographic technologies and techniques pose a number of complex questions. Drawing on contemporary cases, experimental projects in "forensic" approaches to activism, and recent work in critical geography, aesthetics, STS, and political theory, this seminar will attempt to map out these digital geographies of climate justice as they emerge. The course will also involve introduction to entry-level remote sensing + GIS workflows (no prior experience required) in a pair of intensive workshops led by guest lecturers/practitioners.

Instructor(s): Alexander Arroyo     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Undergraduate/Graduate Course - only open to 3rd and 4th year undergraduate students. This course counts toward the 4th year ENST capstone requirement.
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 29301, MAPH 32301, CEGU 22301

CEGU 32410. Architecture Studio: Bodies, Objects, Spaces. 100 Units.

How do we experience the world beyond what we simply see? Architecture Studio: Bodies, Objects, Spaces is a hands-on, multisensory introduction to architecture that centers the human body as a starting point for design. Open to students with no prior experience in architecture or drawing, the studio begins with close observation of an everyday interior space, mapping its sensory landscape through measurement, drawing, and annotation that attends to sight, sound, smell, and touch. Students then engage in a series of design investigations, including the fabrication of a body-scale object that amplifies or alters a chosen sense. In the final phase of the course, students play with scale, transforming a bodily object into an architectural proposition by designing a room that frames, houses, or activates it for others to experience. Through making, drawing, and iteration, students explore how architectural ideas can emerge from the relationship between bodies, objects, and spaces, developing conceptual clarity while gaining foundational skills in architectural representation and spatial thinking.

Instructor(s): C. Haouzi     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Architecture Studios: Architecture Studios introduce students to technical skills and creative approaches for designing the built environment. While exploring different themes, the cumulative design exercises of these studios prepare students for Advanced Architecture Studios. No prior studio or art experience is required. This course fulfills the following requirements in the ARTH major and minor: European and American post-1800
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 32410, ARCH 22410, ARTH 22410, ARTH 32410, ARTV 22410, CEGU 22410, CHST 22410

CEGU 33017. Wild" Easts. 100 Units.

Imaginaries of the "wild" have long been employed as part of colonial projects, from the conquest of lands of the Great Eurasian Steppe to modern conservation initiatives. In this course, we examine ideas about the "wild" with a focus on the easts of "Europe" and easts of Russia, whether Ukraine, Qazaqstan, or Bulgaria, and ways in which these lands have been constructed as "wild" territories. We discuss ecologies and cultures of the steppe, nuclear and (post)industrial wastelands, and contemporary practices of re-wilding to study the violence of being framed as "wild", as well subversive and liberatory potentials of (re)claiming all things "wild". The course takes on an interdisciplinary approach, examining works of fiction alongside history books, and films alongside memoirs; additionally, a possibility of a field trip to Site A/Plot M Disposal Site, where the world's first nuclear reactor is buried, is to be confirmed.

Instructor(s): Darya Tsymbalyuk     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 23017, CHST 23017, REES 33017, REES 23017

CEGU 33201. American Monsters: An Ecocritical Look at Cryptozoology. 100 Units.

Cryptids are everywhere. From household monsters like Bigfoot and Mothman to local creatures like the Wisconsin Hodag and the Illinois Piasa Bird, folkloric animals appear across the United States in advertisements, star in TV and film, and even feature in conspiracy theories. Despite their ubiquity, yet perhaps unsurprisingly, cryptozoological animals have received little scholarly attention. This course aims to change that! By taking cryptozoology seriously, or at least as a serious object of study, students in American Monsters will study the history of cryptid folklore to unearth the historical context surrounding each creature and apply ecocritical methodologies to these tales in order to uncover the cultural values that cryptozoological stories hold. This course will think primarily about the place of cryptids in American understandings of wilderness, extinction, settler colonialism, and race. Course materials will come from a variety of disciplines including history, animal studies, material culture studies, and Indigenous studies, and include film, primary sources, and experiential learning activities.

Instructor(s): Jessica Landau     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 23201, CEGU 23201

CEGU 33300. State and Water Governance in Historical Perspective. 100 Units.

Who owns shared ecological resources, and how are their extraction, governance, and distribution regulated? What role do states play in "equitable" allocation of scarce ecological resources? We focus particularly on water, examining how competing claims over this essential resource have been negotiated from the ancient past to the present. Water management is never merely technical: it is inherently social and political. It requires cooperation, yet it can also generate conflict-even warfare. Archaeological and historical scholarship often attributes large waterworks to ancient states, and hydraulic projects have been central to modern national states building globally. But can states balance the inherent tensions between a need to manage complex water systems that run across communities and the rights of those communities for communal and ecological well-being? Centralization and efficiency can undermine citizen rights and freedoms. We will question the roots of state accountability and representativeness in ecological distribution. We will review how ecological planning shapes identity, belonging, and the socio-economic resilience of distinct communities, and also reshapes communities' natural environment. Bringing historical and contemporary case studies into conversation, we will grapple with the difficult sociopolitical trade-offs of water governance. We will ask what alternative imaginaries of collective infrastructure and ecological governance are possible or desired.

Instructor(s): Gary Herrigel, Mehrnoush Soroush     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): PQ: Third or fourth-year status
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 23300, PLSC 23300, CEGU 23300, PLSC 33350, ARKE 23300, NEHC 33300, BPRO 23300

CEGU 34010. Ecocide: Reckoning with Environmental Destruction. 100 Units.

Ecocide is defined as a crime against the environment, originating from legal debate in the context of the Vietnam War. Taking Vietnam as our starting point, this course engages with a wide range of materials (from novels to poetry to ethnographic studies) and different places (Ukraine, Vanuatu, Iraq, Palestine, and many others) in order to examine the broader context in which the campaign to criminalize environmental destruction emerged. We discuss what forms of environmental justice we can envision and pursue today, and debate possibilities and limitations of legal accountability. The readings are inter- and multidisciplinary, drawing from environmental humanities, anthropology, legal studies, history, and other fields. The assignments include a possibility to develop one's own research topic, which could take the form of a traditional paper or a critical-creative project (video essay, poster, other creative forms).

Instructor(s): Darya Tsymbalyuk     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): REES 34010, REES 24010, GLST 24010, CEGU 24010

CEGU 34101. Satellite Image Analysis. 100 Units.

This course takes students to the next level of remote sensing methods and image analysis, focusing on advanced quantitative theories and methods for analyzing satellite imagery. Students will explore a range of satellite missions, with an emphasis on using Landsat and Sentinel satellite images. Through analysis in QGIS and GDAL, they will learn to perform band combinations, create indices such as the Burn Ratio and NDVI, and carry out image segmentation and classification. By the end of the course, students will have a solid understanding of advanced satellite image analysis techniques and their applications in various domains, including environmental monitoring, disaster management, and land-use planning.

Instructor(s): Sperone, Gianluca     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 34100, GISC 24100, CEGU 24101

CEGU 34102. Environmental Politics. 100 Units.

Politics determines not only what particular faction holds power, but the parameters upon which contests for power are conducted. Competing political factions may diverge in the details of the policies they favor, but may agree on a central organizing principle upon which their policy differences are contested. This course acknowledges that such principles exist and structure politics, economics, and social arrangements, but also challenges the notion that these are immutable, and argues that other principles could be substituted which would drastically change these arrangements. The course introduces students to alternative theories of economics, politics, and environmental policy that challenge mainstream notions of what is acceptable under the current structural and institutional constraints, including how the retreat to notions of realism and practicality place limits on changes necessary to preserve and protect the natural environment.

Instructor(s): R. Lodato     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CCSG 22504, CEGU 24102, PBPL 24102

CEGU 34181. Introductory Architecture Studio: House, Housing. 100 Units.

This course positions the architect as an advocate, engaging the building and zoning code as a critical site of design practice in addressing the housing crisis. Rather than treating regulation as a constraint, students will examine how architects can shape policy to expand housing supply, affordability, and typological breadth. Focusing on "missing middle" housing, the course investigates how provisions-such as egress requirements, parking requirements, and unit standards-shape the production of housing, inclusive design, alongside emerging nation-wide movements such as the expansion of ADUs. Through readings, case studies, and conversations with policymakers, attorneys, and designers, students will develop strategies for advocacy as a form of design work. Working in groups and individually, they will produce targeted code reform proposals that connect spatial thinking and design with regulatory change. The course culminates in three-minute public comment presentations at a City Council committee, where students test their arguments in a live civic forum, positioning architectural practice as an active agent in shaping housing policy.

Instructor(s): A. Lui     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Architecture Studios introduce students to technical skills and creative approaches for designing the built environment. While exploring different themes, the cumulative design exercises of these studios prepare students for Advanced Architecture Studios. No prior studio or art experience is required.
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 24181, ARTH 34181, ARTH 24181, ARCH 24181

CEGU 34503. Combustion Aesthetics. 100 Units.

Fire has been central to architecture for millennia, but combustion-derived materials including concrete, steel, glass, insulation, adhesives, and plastics have shaped far more of the built environment than the chimney alone. In parallel, the sounds of power plants and combustion engines have inspired whole new schools of musical practice, from Futurism to Blues to Metal. Meanwhile, the increasing proliferation of petrochemical art materials has dissolved their historically uneven quality and availability, empowering such Modernist universalisms as color theory and grid systems. These aesthetic transformations persistently, elusively, quietly-and sometimes more overtly-seep back into professional standards for building safety, efficiency, and comfort, policy discussions about transportation infrastructure and energy resilience, and consumer decisions about what to buy, make, use, repair, modify, replace, or discard. As fossil economies are increasingly challenged for their role in climate change and biodiversity loss, do their accompanying aesthetic paradigms also need to be rethought? Should sustainability initiatives simply attempt to replicate petroaesthetics in a less harmful way or should new forms of aesthetics (or very old ones) be encouraged to (re-)emerge? To grapple with these questions, we will produce both analyses and imaginings-in text, image, sound, and object-that exemplify, problematize, and counteract combustion aesthetics as a cultural inheritance.

Instructor(s): Carlo Diaz     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 30045, ARTV 20045, ARCH 25014, CEGU 24503, ARTH 25014

CEGU 34555. Ecological Explorations of the Francophone World. 100 Units.

The environmental humanities - that is, the study of nature through humanistic disciplines such as literature and history - has long been dominated by texts and theories from privileged sections of Europe and North America. However, alternative understandings of our natural world, including the role of living beings within it, have always existed. In this course, we will explore how contemporary francophone literature can renew, expand and complicate our perceptions of the oceans, deserts, mangroves and forests that surround us. Particular attention will be paid to questions of race, gender, language and indigeneity; course material may include theoretical texts, fiction, poetry, songs, podcasts, film, graphic novels and social media material.

Instructor(s): Nikhita Obeegadoo     Terms Offered: Not offered this academic year
Prerequisite(s): For students seeking French credit, FREN 20500 or equivalent.
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 34555, FREN 34555, CEGU 24555, FREN 24555, RDIN 24555

CEGU 34561. Latest Experiments in Architectural History. 100 Units.

This seminar invites students to examine recent scholarly experiments in architectural history. Participants will read and discuss a corpus of books published in the last five years. Each week, we will take a deep dive into a single publication by synthesizing its argument, unpacking its structure, and demonstrating its potential limits. In-class activities will catalyze dialogue and debate on the readings as well as highlight resonances across assigned books. By the end of the quarter, students will have developed transversal views of contemporary practices in architectural history and heightened their senses of methodological self-awareness.

Instructor(s): J. Huet     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Fulfills the following requirements in the ARTH major and minor: Theory and Historiography
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 24651, ARTH 24651, ARCH 24651, ARTH 34651

CEGU 34600. Introduction to Urban Sciences. 100 Units.

This course is a grand tour of conceptual frameworks, general phenomena, emerging data and policy applications that define a growing scientific integrated understanding of cities and urbanization. It starts with a general outlook of current worldwide explosive urbanization and associated changes in social, economic and environmental indicators. It then introduces a number of historical models, from sociology, economics and geography that have been proposed to understand how cities operate. We will discuss how these and other facets of cities can be integrated as dynamical complex systems and derive their general characteristics as social networks embedded in structured physical spaces. Resulting general properties of cities will be illustrated in different geographic and historical contexts, including an understanding of urban resource flows, emergent institutions and the division of labor and knowledge as drivers of innovation and economic growth. The second part of the course will deal with issues of inequality, heterogeneity and (sustainable) growth in cities. We will explore how these features of cities present different realities and opportunities to different individuals and how these appear as spatially concentrated (dis)advantage that shape people's life courses. We will show how issues of inequality also have consequences at more macroscopic levels and derive the general features of population and economic growth for systems of cities and nations.

Instructor(s): Luis Bettencourt     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): STAT 22000
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 24600, SOCI 20285, PBPL 24605, GISC 24600, GISC 34600

CEGU 34614. Public Art, Land Art in Europe-Gold Gorvy Traveling Seminar. 100 Units.

This class examines the intersections of two categories of sculpture traditionally understood separately: land art and public art. If the former term typically captures artworks made in remote locations, the latter concept is associated with objects conceived in relation to architecture for dense urban contexts. Land Art usually features ephemeral earthen or other natural ingredients, whereas public art tends to be made from durable industrial and other man-made materials. In the context of postwar Europe and in the wake of the continent's reconstruction, however, artists often worked across these categories, problematizing dichotomies of nature and civilization, landscape and urbanism, artwork and context, figure and ground. We will read foundational texts on postwar sculpture; test the relevance of theories of the public; consider the roles of context, site-specificity, commemoration, architecture, and photography; and examine questions of materials and conservation. This is a Gold-Gorvy Traveling Seminar and students will travel to relevant artworks, sites, and exhibitions, including the 2027 iteration of Skulptur Projekte Münster and documenta 16 in Kassel, Germany. Students must be available for two weeks of department-sponsored travel following June 5 convocation and prepare guided reading and research during spring quarter leading up to the traveling seminar itself.

Instructor(s): C. Mehring     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent note: Students should email instructor explaining relevant background and interest by January 10, 2027. This course fulfills the following requirements in the ARTH major and minor: European and American post-1800
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 34614, GRMN 24614, ARTV 20461, ARTH 24614, GRMN 34614, ARTV 30461, ARCH 24614, CEGU 24614

CEGU 34660. Urban Geography. 100 Units.

This course examines the spatial organization and current restructuring of modern cities in light of the economic, social, cultural, and political forces that shape them. It explores the systematic interactions between social process and physical system. We cover basic concepts of urbanism and urbanization, systems of cities urban growth, migration, centralization and decentralization, land-use dynamics, physical geography, urban morphology, and planning. Field trip in Chicago region required. This course is part of the College Course Cluster, Urban Design.

Instructor(s): M. Conzen     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement. This course offered in even years.
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 24660, CEGU 24660

CEGU 34776. International Environmental Policy. 100 Units.

Environmental issues have become a prominent part of the work of international organizations and their member nations. However, the resolution to issues and concerns shared in common by the nations of the world often faces obstacles based on access to wealth and resources, political and military power, and the demands of international economic institutions. While multinational agreements have been achieved and successfully implemented, resolutions to issues such as climate change have been harder to achieve. The course will look at the origins of international cooperation on environmental issues, several case studies of issues upon which the international community has attempted to bring about cooperative solutions (climate change, the ozone hole, climate refugees, etc.), and the work that regional associations of nations have done to jointly address shared environmental challenges. In addition, speakers from various consulates have addressed the class to discuss environmental policymaking in their countries.

Instructor(s): R. Lodato     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): PBPL 24776, CCSG 22506, CEGU 24776

CEGU 34800. Introduction to Remote Sensing Analysis. 100 Units.

Remote sensing is the process of taking measurements of the earth's surface through sensors such as satellites or drones. The analysis of remote sensing data helps address critical challenges in areas like natural resource modeling and socio-economic or environmental analysis, such as responding to natural disasters, measuring urbanization through night lights, or tracking deforestation. This course introduces concepts and methods for visualizing, processing, and analyzing remotely sensed data. It covers topics such as sources and types of data, data access and management, image interpretation, and modeling. Students will gain experience applying these techniques to real-world scenarios. By the end of the course, they will have a solid foundation in remote sensing analysis, equipping them with skills for research and work in fields such as urban development, conservation, and resource management.

Instructor(s): TBA     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): None
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 34800, CEGU 24800, GISC 24800

CEGU 34900. Digital Elevation Modeling and Analysis. 100 Units.

The course will guide students through various methods of remote sensing data collection and analysis, focusing on global phenomena occurring on land, oceans, and the lower atmosphere, such as those captured by the NASA-MODIS Aqua and Terra satellites. Students will gain experience with the USGS 3D Elevation Program and airborne topographic LiDAR and learn how to create detailed elevation models to address quantitative GIS problems. Additionally, students will enhance their skills in geospatial analysis and remote sensing technologies QGIS or GDAL. Through a combination of theoretical knowledge and exercises, this course will equip them with the expertise required to tackle real-world problems in environmental monitoring, urban planning, and other fields reliant on accurate geospatial data.

Instructor(s): Sperone, Gianluca     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 24900, GISC 24900, GISC 34900

CEGU 35027. Infrastructure Histories. 100 Units.

Dams, sewers, container ships, water pipes, power lines, air conditioning, and garbage dumps: the critical infrastructures that enable modern life are so often invisible, except when they fail. This course explores the historical role of infrastructure as a set of planet-spanning systems of resource extraction and crucial conduits of social and political power. Looking at cases from apartheid South Africa and the Suez Canal to Mumbai and Chicago itself, we will consider the relationship of infrastructure with capitalism, settler colonialism, and postcolonial development. We will see how forms of citizenship and exclusion have been shaped and negotiated via wires, leaky pipes, and improvised repairs, and we will consider perhaps the biggest question of all: In this age of ecological crisis, do energy-guzzling infrastructural systems have a strange form of more-than-human agency all of their own?

Instructor(s): E. Chatterjee     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 25027, CEGU 25027, HIST 25027, CHSS 35270, HIST 35027, HIPS 25270

CEGU 35200. Mapping and Analyzing Climate Impacts. 100 Units.

TBD

Equivalent Course(s): GISC 25200, GISC 35200, CEGU 25200

CEGU 35515. Environmental Media. 100 Units.

TBD.

Instructor(s): Tom Lamarre     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 25515, CMST 35515, CMST 25515

CEGU 35555. Water worlds. Social inquiry in a fluid medium. 100 Units.

What can we learn from water about the human condition and social life? The planet's surface is mostly water and so are our own bodies. We tend, however, to see water as something beyond us, an entity we live with rather than amidst, within, or even as. In this course, we will query water as a relational medium, a simultaneously necessary and destabilizing presence in human affairs. When it floods, water becomes catastrophe; when dammed, it becomes a market good; when contaminated, it becomes a political weapon. What problems and possibilities follow from different ways of relating to water? Through readings in history, anthropology, and media studies, we will examine the concepts and methods that a so-called "water turn" in the social sciences lends to our understandings of capital, power, affect, and spacetime. What do we gain from thinking of oceans, lakes, and rivers but also people as "waterbodies"? How do we adopt an "amphibious" perspective on seemingly dry problems in social life? What does "hydrosociality" teach us about how to read or write environmental stories? Course assessment will involve leading class discussion and a final project of your own design. It is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates with instructor consent.

Instructor(s): Dr. Damien Bright     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 35555, ANTH 35555, CEGU 25555, ANTH 25555, MAPS 25555

CEGU 35909. Histories of Environment and Technology in the Modern Middle East. 100 Units.

Over the past decade, the field of Middle East history has undergone a surge of scholarly interest in a broad range of "new materialisms." Alongside, and sometimes in conversation with, a marked revival of political economy, this new work has explored, in multiple directions, the mutual constitution and co-evolution of social formations in the region with the tangible materials of the world around them. After revisiting a number of earlier, classic works that examined similar questions under different guises, this course will cover a range of new studies that represent the diversity and promise of these new approaches to histories of environment and technology.

Instructor(s): A. Jakes     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 25909, NEHC 35909, HIST 35909, CEGU 25909, HIST 25909

CEGU 36100. Roots of the Modern American City. 100 Units.

This course traces the economic, social, and physical development of the city in North America from pre-European times to the mid-twentieth century. We emphasize evolving regional urban systems, the changing spatial organization of people and land use in urban areas, and the developing distinctiveness of American urban landscapes. All-day Illinois field trip required. This course is part of the College Course Cluster, Urban Design.

Instructor(s): M. Conzen     Terms Offered: Autumn. Offered 2021-22
Note(s): This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement. This course offered in odd years.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 38900, ARCH 26100, CHST 26100, HIST 28900, CEGU 26100

CEGU 36106. Tropical Commodities in Latin America. 100 Units.

This colloquium explores selected aspects of the social, economic, environmental, and cultural history of tropical export commodities from Latin America-- e.g., coffee, bananas, sugar, tobacco, henequen, rubber, vanilla, and cocaine. Topics include land, labor, capital, markets, transport, geopolitics, power, taste, and consumption.

Instructor(s): E. Kourí     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 26106, HIST 36106, LACS 36106, HIST 26106, LACS 26106

CEGU 36180. Caring for the Earth: Nature and Ecology Before Modernity. 100 Units.

What do we mean by nature, and how do humans relate to it? A recent French translation of Virgil's "Georgics" was titled anew: "Le souci de la terre" ("care for the earth") What does it mean to care? Is care disinterested, or does it serve a purpose? What logics of dominion or obligation shape it? This course traces ideas of nature and care from Antiquity to early modernity. How did humans conceive of their place in the world? How did they understand its resources and their impact? From the commons to enclosures, from caretaking to exploitation, from interpreting nature to organizing it (aménagement), we will question linear narratives of progress (humans caring more) and degradation (humans caring less). Focusing on France and French texts while engaging classical and theological sources, we will also consider exploration and exploitation beyond France. We will examine how religious ideas, canonical texts, and philosophical concepts have shaped discourses on nature, as well as the relevance of contemporary ecological terms. Attending closely to the multiple ways in which human beings variously have articulated their relationship to nature or the environment permits us to ask, instead of assume, what might be the conditions and practices of care incumbent upon human beings today.

Instructor(s): Daisy Delogu, Pauline Goul     Terms Offered: Not offered this academic year
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 36180, CLAS 36181, MDVL 26180, CLCV 26181, CEGU 26180, FREN 26180, RLST 26180, CMLT 36180, CMLT 26180

CEGU 36301. Qualitative Methods for Social Science Research. 100 Units.

This course introduces qualitative research methods used in environmental social science to examine the relationships between society, governance, culture, and socio-environmental change. Students will develop practical skills in a variety of qualitative approaches, including but not limited to ethnography and observational analysis, digital ethnography, interviewing, policy and document analysis, and systematic literature reviews. Each methodological focus emphasizes the strengths and limitations of the approach, as well as ethics, research design, data collection, interpretation, and the application of qualitative inquiry to questions related to environmental governance, climate adaptation, sustainability, and socio-ecological systems. Reflexive examination of researcher positionality and its implications for data collection, interpretation, and knowledge production is incorporated throughout the course. Through readings, case studies, and applied research exercises, students will learn how qualitative methods can generate insights into key questions in environmental social science.

Instructor(s): Betsy Priem      Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 26302, SOCI 20659, SOCI 30659, CEGU 26301

CEGU 36509. Law and Citizenship in Latin America. 100 Units.

This course will examine the history of law and citizenship in Latin America from the 19th to the 21st centuries. After a brief introduction to the so-called "Civil Law Tradition" that structures law across much of the world, we will explore the following themes: the development of Latin American constitutions, laws, and legal systems; the ways the operation of these systems has shaped citizenship and exclusion; the relationship between legal and other inequalities; the intersection of law and informality; and how legal history can shed light on broader questions of race, liberalism, family, gender, migration, urbanity, violence, policing, state terror, and the environment.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): background in Latin American Studies, Latin American History, and/or legal history useful
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 26509, HIST 26509, LACS 26509, HIST 36509, KNOW 36509, LLSO 26509, LACS 36509

CEGU 36511. Cities from Scratch: The History of Urban Latin America. 100 Units.

Latin America is one of the world's most urbanized regions and its urban heritage long predates European conquest. Yet the region's urban experience has generally been understood through North Atlantic models, which often treat Latin American cities as disjunctive, distorted knockoffs of idealized US or European cities. This class interrogates and expands those North Atlantic visions by emphasizing the history of vital urban issues such as informality, inequality, intimacy, race, gender, violence, plural regulatory regimes, the urban environment, and rights to the city. Interdisciplinary course materials include anthropology, sociology, history, fiction, film, photography, and journalism produced from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Some coursework in Latin American studies, urban studies, and/or history
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 26511, HIST 26511, LACS 26510, LACS 36510, HIST 36511, ARCH 26511

CEGU 36907. Into the Unquiet Woods: The Environmental History of South Asia. 100 Units.

Today South Asia is the world region perhaps most acutely threatened by climate change, air pollution, water scarcity, and extreme weather. At the same time, the Indian subcontinent has long been the source of the most vibrant and innovative research in environmental history beyond the West. Drawing on this rich body of scholarship, this course explores the deep historical roots of South Asia's contemporary environmental crises. How have the Asian monsoon, the Indian Ocean, and the Himalayas shaped human history? What were the environmental consequences of British colonial rule? How have South Asian intellectuals and protesters pushed forward the boundaries of green thought and political action, from M. K. Gandhi to the "tree hugging" Chipko movement and anti-dam activists of the 1970s and 1980s? We will investigate both the South Asian avatars of classic topics in environmental history (like the plantation, mineral extraction, industrialized agriculture, and chemical toxicity) as well as place-specific issues like the environmental history of caste and Hindu nationalism. On the way, we will pay particular attention to how historians have wrestled with the conceptual and aesthetic challenges of incorporating non-human agency at diverse scales, from El Niño and unruly rivers to opium poppies and mollusks.

Instructor(s): E. Chatterjee     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 26907, SALC 26907, SALC 36907, HIST 36907, CEGU 26907, CHSS 36907, HIPS 26907

CEGU 37100. Cartographic Design and Geovisualization. 100 Units.

This course is a hands-on introduction to core principles and techniques associated with cartographic design, especially with regards to digital map design and the geographic visualization of data. In this course, you will work with free and open-source geographic data visualization and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software and tools, presenting your design assignments in class for student-led peer critiques, culminating in a final design portfolio at the end of the course. You will also conduct personal field investigations throughout the quarter to apply your learning and gain real world inspiration. Main topics include map generalization, symbology, scale, visual variables, scales of measurement, 2D and 3D design, map animation and interaction, and web mapping. The course is a survey course of these topics, with opportunities to actively build your design skills and critical evaluation abilities with regards to cartography and geographic visualization.

Instructor(s): Crystal Bae     Terms Offered: Autumn. Typically offered in Autumn Quarter every year.
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 27100, GISC 37100, CHST 27100, CEGU 27100

CEGU 37102. Spatial and Environmental Cognition. 100 Units.

Cities are living systems shaped by the ways in which people perceive, navigate, and make decisions within them. This course examines the spatial and cognitive dimensions of urban life, focusing on cognitive mapping and wayfinding, spatial learning and decision-making, mobility and migration, time geography, and the influence of place identity, gender, and culture on how people experience space. Drawing from an interdisciplinary foundation spanning geography, urban studies, sociology, anthropology, and cognitive psychology, students will develop frameworks for understanding how human cognition and behavior shape, and are shaped by, the built environment - insights that are increasingly critical as cities grow and as planners, designers, and policymakers work to create urban areas that are more equitable, navigable, and resilient for all residents.

Instructor(s): Crystal Bae     Terms Offered: Spring. Typically offered annually in Spring Quarter every year.
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 37102, GISC 27102, CHST 27102, CEGU 27102

CEGU 37104. Transportation and Urban Mobility Analysis. 100 Units.

This is a methodological course overviewing movement data types, common data sources and applications, movement representations and scale, movement parameters, 2D and 3D representations of movement, and types of visualization approaches (trajectories, flow maps, network-based). The topics covered draw from application areas in human transportation, temporary travel and migration, and non-human animal movement.

Instructor(s): Crystal Bae     Terms Offered: Autumn. Typically offered in Autumn Quarter every year.
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 37104, CHST 27104, CEGU 27104, GISC 27104

CEGU 37155. Urban Design with Nature. 100 Units.

This course will use the Chicago region as the setting to evaluate the social, environmental, and economic effects of alternative forms of human settlement. Students will examine the history, theory and practice of designing cities in sustainable ways - i.e., human settlements that are socially just, economically viable, and environmentally sound. Students will explore the literature on sustainable urban design from a variety of perspectives, and then focus on how sustainability theories play out in the Chicago region using a range of social science approaches and urban design tools. In Autumn 2026, the class will focus on how various tenets of sustainable urbanism-affordable housing, mobility justice, and equitable green space planning, amidst myriad pressures and risks associated with climate change. Students enrolled in Autumn 2026 must be willing to spend time outdoors, moving about campus and its surroundings, and on occasional field trips.

Instructor(s): Sabina Shaikh and Emily Talen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Third or fourth-year standing, or MA enrolled.
Equivalent Course(s): CCSG 22502, PBPL 27156, CHST 27155, BPRO 27155, ARCH 27155, GISC 27155, CEGU 27155

CEGU 37308. Advanced Architecture Studio: Future City, Chicago Year 2137. 100 Units.

This studio imagines the future city of Chicago two centuries after its founding, to create visions of how climate change, migration, shifting mobility patterns, and economic and demographic transformations have the potential to literally reshape urban life. Students will engage in speculative design by asking "What if: X?"-using hypothetical scenarios to test the limits of architecture and urbanism. The course takes a multi-scalar design approach, from imagining transformations in everyday objects like a cup of coffee to re-visioning infrastructure, public space, or cultural institutions, connecting personal experience with city- and region-wide systems. The studio will combine data-driven analysis, including introducing students to GIS mapping to present geospatial information, with speculative approaches inspired by science fiction in novels and films, translated into digital image making. Students will develop visual narratives that catalyze conversations about future urban conditions, with areas of focus of their choosing. The studio is complemented by a lecture series featuring future-oriented architects and designers in adjacent disciplines, introducing ways that speculative thinking can produce new conversations on modes of climate adaptation, social resilience, and emerging technologies at the city-scale.

Instructor(s): A. Lui     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Advanced Architecture Studios: Advanced Architecture Studios engage deeply with specific topics in the built environment, architectural and design practice, or representation. Students should have completed at least one introductory Architecture Studio before enrolling
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 27308, ARCH 27308, ARTH 37308

CEGU 37442. Environmental Art Histories of South Asia. 100 Units.

How can art history contribute to the ongoing discourse about environmentalism? What can the study of art tell us about the inter-relatedness of human creativity and the environment? In this seminar, we will wrestle with these questions through an ecocritical study of South Asian art. South Asian art is fundamentally marked by an interest in nature. The towers of Indian temples were conceived of as physical manifestations of the Himalayas. Temple doors often include anthropomorphic depictions of the rivers Ganga and Yamuna. Animals and birds are active agents in major Indian epics. Forests drew in meditating mystics, exiled princes, forlorn lovers. The ocean, capricious and vast, was a thing to fear. In the seminar we will look at the environment and its depiction in art. In considering the two together, we will ask: How did the natural environment shape and affect the arts? What significance can the arts have when the environment that gave it meaning is in danger of vanishing? We live in a time of unparalleled environmental crisis. While scientific disciplines have traditionally been at the forefront of describing our transforming environment, the present crisis calls on us to rethink all forms of scholarly discourse to offer a holistic view of the problems we face. To that end, an ecocritical approach allows us to rethink how humans have coexisted with the environment, and can, perhaps, offer a way forward.

Instructor(s): M. Manohar     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): This course fulfills the following requirements in the ARTH major and minor: Asian post-1800
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 37442, CEGU 27442, ARTH 27442

CEGU 38400. GIScience Practicum. 100 Units.

This applied course in geographic information science builds upon and refines knowledge and geocomputational expertise gained in the GIScience sequence. Students will develop a multifaceted GIS project incorporating spatial thinking in design, infrastructure, and implementation. This year's projects will focus on urban renewal in mid-20th century Chicago. Students will conduct guided projects investigating the implications and legacies of urban renewal, utilizing spatial analysis methods such as network analysis, accessibility analysis, machine learning, and/or regression modeling. This course will feature guest lectures from organizations such as the Chicago History Museum and Newberry Library to introduce backgrounds and data on urban renewal in the United States. Students will also share their work in a student-engaged event.

Instructor(s): Yue Lin     Terms Offered: Spring. Offered 2024–25
Prerequisite(s): Students must complete GISC 28100/38100, GISC 28200/38200 (or equivalent GISC coursework) and SOCI 20253/30253 Introduction to Spatial Data Science before taking this course.
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 28400, GISC 38400, CHST 28400, CEGU 28400

CEGU 38900. The U.S. - Mexico Borderlands. 100 Units.

This course examines the US-Mexico Borderlands from a time before political borders to the contemporary moment. As a vast geographical and conceptual space of cooperation and antagonism, the borderlands that include what is today the southwestern United States and northern Mexico comprise a crucial site to interrogate the formation and limits of colonial imposition, national identity, state power, racial segregation, environmental transformation, and capitalist expansion. In this course, we will map the history of the Mexico-US borderlands by drawing from testimony, fiction, images, cartography, music as well as scholarship that centers the experiences of those who have lived in and moved through this territory. This course is open to all.

Instructor(s): Schwartz Francisco, Diana     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 28900, LACS 38900, GLST 28900, HIST 36310, LACS 28900, HIST 26310

CEGU 39055. Environmental Justice and Community Action. 100 Units.

This course overviews basic principles of social scientific research on environmental justice, such as disaster vulnerability, recovery, resilience, and assistance. Students will learn about the various ways the environment disproportionately impacts marginalized households and communities, from mental health to displacement. We will pay special attention to the struggles (both wins and losses) of local communities and policymakers fighting for environmental justice.

Equivalent Course(s): SSAD 69055, CEGU 29055, SSAD 29055

CEGU 39379. Interactive Environments. 100 Units.

This is a course about how environmental concepts and aesthetics are mediated using interactive technologies, from video games to computer models. The environment has long been imagined as something constituted by interactions. We can think of Charles Darwin's figuration of a "tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth… dependent upon each other in so complex a manner" to produce new and divergent species over time. Later, such interactions were captured in mathematical and computational models, e.g. of predator-prey dynamics. In this course, we will consider the history and theory of the interactive environment alongside interactive media, a genre that includes entertainment media like video games, ecological modeling software, analog toys/games, and social media platforms. The class explores the interactivity of environments through hands-on play, tinkering, argumentation and experimentation with interactive media. Students will learn to critically analyze popular imaginaries, aesthetic objects, and the tools of scientific knowledge production, and interrogate how each contributes to urgent conversations about how we interact with nature.

Instructor(s): Katherine Buse     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 10379, CEGU 29369, CMST 29379, CMST 39379

CEGU 39801. BA Colloquium I. 100 Units.

This colloquium is designed to aid students in their thesis research. Students are exposed to different conceptual frameworks and research strategies. The class meets weekly.

Instructor(s): Christopher Kindell     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 29801

CEGU 39802. BA Colloquium II. 100 Units.

This colloquium assists students in conceptualizing, researching, and writing their BA theses.

Instructor(s): Christopher Kindell     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 29802

CEGU 40000. Adventures in Speculative Environments - Readings in Anthropology and Environment. 100 Units.

This graduate seminar explores topics in environmental anthropology and science and technology studies through instances of ecological experimentation. By reading ethnographic accounts of experimentation alongside speculative ecosophies and climate fiction, it will consider the ways in which such ecological experimentations pose conceptual, methodological, and ethical challenges that help us develop an anthropological engagement adequate to an era dominated by concerns with the constant threat of pandemics and the declining condition of our global ecology. It will aim, as well, to elaborate the implicit possibilities born of thinking not only in terms of relation but also in relation to a politics and ethics of process. Of particular concern will be a number of questions, such as: how to (re)imagine the conceptual currency of nature as an analytic category or even object of inquiry; how ethnography might reshape technologies of nature; and what sort of social transformations might this reshaping render imaginable.

Instructor(s): Michael Fisch
Equivalent Course(s): AASR 40000, ANTH 40000

CEGU 41730. Rewild, repair, restore! Science fictions of life-making in the aftermath. 100 Units.

Science fiction has long imagined human relations persisting and transforming on the ruined earth. Indeed, science fiction imaginaries offered horizons for human, and more-than-human, environmental and social restoration long before most cultural forms began to grapple with what we sometimes still call "climate change." This class reads science fiction (mostly American, from the 1960s-2020s), alongside environmental and social theory to begin to ask what it might take to live toward and in conditions of repair, and what repair and restoration seem to mean in our current moment. We will be particularly interested in where and how environmental restoration intersects with conceptions of social repair, collective life-building and liberation. What might repair require in scenes not only of environmental devastation, but of state violence, settler colonialism, racial capitalism and the uneven distribution of dispossession and loss? If restoration is a process and not a destination, what might the daily life under conditions of repair be? What possibilities for transformed collective life and relations might be opened up by processes of repair? What might not be reparable, or when and where might repair need to stop? We'll engage these questions and more by thinking and imagining with environmental theory, theories of settler colonialism and racial capital, feminist theories of reproduction, communization theory and science fiction.

Instructor(s): Hilary Strang     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 41730, ENGL 21730, CEGU 21730, MAPH 41730

CEGU 44000. Inhabiting in the Renaissance. 100 Units.

In a seventeenth-century manuscript map of Brazilian coast, the cartographer wrote, in the middle of an empty space, "pays inhabitué que par des sauvages," emphasizing-among other things-the phonetic and semiotic confusion between inhabiting, habituating or settling, and the uninhabitable as a concept. This seminar will look at the French Renaissance through the lens of inhabiting, in a wide sense of the term, whether it is the house, a plot of land, your local zone or the earth. As a time that is confronted with narratives of other, distant ways of making a home, the French Renaissance deserves to be reframed as a critical moment in defining how the humans of Humanism approached and apprehended their environment and their way of life, as well as their dependence on resources and on other beings. Students will read canonical texts such as Montaigne's "Essais," Rabelais's "Gargantua" and "Pantagruel," Jean de Léry's "Histoire d'un voyage faict en la terre du Brésil," Marguerite de Navarre's "Heptaméron," as well as the rustic manuals of Charles Estienne and Jean Liebault and of Olivier de Serres. Aside from recent scholarship on early modern French literature and ecocriticism, we will turn to an interdisciplinary corpus of thinkers of ecology (from theory to psychology and nonfiction) to give new depth to the primary sources, as well as dive into the vibrant and recent French ecological thought of Bruno Latour, Emanuele Coccia, Isabelle Stengers, and Emilie Hache.

Instructor(s): Pauline Goul     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taught in English. Materials available in English and French.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 44000

CEGU 45000. Latin American Environmental Humanities. 100 Units.

The environmental humanities have emerged in the past couple of decades as a crucial field to understand the multifaceted history of environmental thought and culture around the world as well as to grapple with the intractable challenges wrought by the current environmental crisis. In Latin America, the field has flourished in dialogue with Anglophone ecocriticism at the same time as it has expanded its thematic, theoretical, a critical reach. This course provides an overview of the environmental humanities in the context of Latin American literature and culture. We will delve into key concepts and problems in the field, from the debates on the Anthropocene and alternative terms to the cultural history of forests and deserts, subfields such as ecofeminism, plant studies, animal studies and energy humanities, as well as concepts particularly productive in the region such as (post)extractivism and multinaturalism. This course will combine primary sources, including works of literature, cinema and visual arts, with a robust attention to influential scholarship on the field.

Instructor(s): Victoria Saramago     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 45000, LACS 45000

CEGU 47000. Leveraging Sensors and Mobile Technologies for Population Health Research. 100 Units.

This course explores the use of wearable devices, mobile technologies, and environmental sensors in population and precision health research, with a focus on mental health and well-being. Students will learn how to integrate physiological, behavioral, and environmental data to measure health outcomes and exposures in real-world settings. The course covers key topics such as study design, data collection methods like ecological momentary assessment, data analysis techniques for mobile health data, and challenges related to adherence and health disparities. By the end, students will gain the practical skills to design and analyze studies using these advanced technologies for health research.

Instructor(s): Laura McGuinn     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): None
Equivalent Course(s): MSPH 47000, HLTH 27002, CEGU 27000

CEGU 50103. The Land is Ours: Colonialism, Belonging, and Sovereignty in Africa. 100 Units.

This course centers land in thinking about the development of dominant political, economic, social, and cultural systems in Africa during and after colonialism. It examines how different actors have articulated their relationships to specific areas of land and established systems and institutions to structure these relationships. Looking at the colonial period, we will focus on competition between indigenous and colonial land tenure systems and the transformative effects of colonial land tenure systems on how people in Africa engaged in political, economic, and social life. Under independence, we will examine how African states used land as part of decolonization processes and the interplay between colonial and indigenous land tenure systems in how the citizens of independent African states have framed and exercised their claims to land. Texts for the course will include historical and other scholarly monographs, primary documents, photographs, and film.

Instructor(s): T. Thipe     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 50103, RDIN 50103

CEGU 51802. Climate Ethics. 100 Units.

Anthropogenic climate change is the largest challenge facing human civilization. Its physical and temporal scale and unprecedented complexity at minimum require extensions of existing ethical systems, if not new ethical tools. This course includes studies of natural and social-scientific studies of climate change and its current and predicted effects. Most of the course will examine how religious and philosophical ethical systems respond to the vast temporal and spatial scales of climate change. For instance, common principles of environmental ethics such as justice and responsibility are often reimagined in climate ethics even as they are central to the ethical analysis of its effects. In the course, we will take a comparative approach to environmental ethics, examining perspectives from secular Western philosophy, Christianity (Catholic and Protestant), Buddhist, and Indigenous thought. We will also look at a variety of ethical methods. Throughout the course we will focus on communication about climate change as well as articulating rigorous ethical arguments about its causes and implications.

Instructor(s): Sarah Fredericks     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Undergraduates may enroll with permission of instructor. This course meets the CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RETH 51802, KNOW 51802, CHSS 51802

CEGU 57100. Fossil Life. 100 Units.

Making human life safe and secure has been a political value at least since the early-modern period in Europe. Furthermore, the human desire for and their myths around the idea of immortality has a history that goes far beyond Europe and its ancient legends. It is only after the onset of industrialization and urbanization, however, that it has been possible for humanity to increase human longevity and to support growing number of human beings, thanks to new technology and fossil fuel energy. This course examines the historical causes of human flourishing and longevity along with its social and intellectual consequences. How did concerns with reproduction and public health shape the transition to modern society? Has the increase in longevity meant human alienation from death? Why are birth rates now plummeting across the world? Readings will draw on literature from various disciplines including history, anthropology, philosophy, science, and economics.

Instructor(s): F. Albritton Jonsson and D. Chakrabarty     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 57100, CCCT 57100, SALC 57100

CEGU 57201. Introduction to the Historiography of Global Science. 100 Units.

Is all science global, and if so, how did it get that way? Are some sciences more global than others? What has been at stake historically in describing scientific activity as variously local, transnational, international, or global, and how have these constructions influenced the historiography of the field? In this seminar, we will explore different approaches to writing and examining scientific knowledge production as a global phenomenon, as well as considering different historiographic attempts at grappling with science's simultaneously local and global qualities, poly-vocal nature, and historical coproduction with global political and economic power.

Instructor(s): E. Kern     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 57201, CHSS 57201

CEGU 57202. Modern Nature. 100 Units.

What does it mean to know the natural world, and how has that knowledge been used to shape, defend, critique, and expand the modern world? This course explores the intellectual, cultural, and political histories of "nature" and "modernity" in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It brings together literature on the rise of the biological and ecological sciences with the histories of industrialization, urbanization, capitalism, and colonialism to consider how nature and the natural been mobilized to diverse political and social ends-and how ideas about nature have shaped social and political outcomes in turn. We will also consider how "nature study" and the natural sciences were mobilized for projects of popularization, mass education, and mass politics and how concepts of nature and biocapital are mobilized in the present day.

Instructor(s): E. Kern     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 57202, HIST 57202

CEGU 57300. Colloquium: Environmental History. 100 Units.

This graduate colloquium provides an advanced introduction to the vibrant field of environmental history, and is particularly designed for PhD students seeking training in the field's increasingly diverse approaches. Alongside classic texts, we will discuss recent examples of methodologically innovative research. Some of these works contribute to emerging subfields like animal history, evolutionary history, climate history, ocean history, and Anthropocene history; others find novel uses for more established historical approaches, like commodity history, labor history, and urban history. Some rely on traditional archival sources, while others draw on oral history, archaeological and linguistic evidence, and insights borrowed from the natural sciences. Through close reading, we will examine how environmental historians have addressed new analytical and aesthetic challenges: negotiating relationships with science and scientists, incorporating non-human agency, and writing history at the unfamiliar scales of deep time, the pathogen, and the planetary. A happy side effect is that we will be reading some of the most vivid and eloquent historical work being penned today. Many (though far from all) environmental historians aim to reach broader audiences by experimenting with style and narrative. While encountering the conceptual and empirical range of environmental history as a discipline, we will also pay attention to the craft of writing history.

Instructor(s): E. Chatterjee     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 57300, CHSS 57300

CEGU 59700. Histories from Below. 100 Units.

Latin America's historiography has long been defined by an unusual degree of commitment to "history from below" -- defined variously as history that is rooted in the Global South; history that takes poor, Indigenous, Black, and working class people as its subjects; history with a political commitment to social change; or history that is committed to intensive, bottom-up archival methods. In this colloquium we will critically assess this multifaceted tradition, focusing especially on the links between historical method and historical argument, the impact of history from below on critical historiographical debates, and uneasy political exchanges about the place of history from below in larger conversations about inequality, imperialism, development, citizenship, environment, governance, and epistemology. Prior knowledge of Latin American history is not required.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer and E. Kourí     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 59700

CEGU 69400. Climate Change and Human Mobility. 100 Units.

A 2021 UN report estimated 21.5 million people have been forced to move each year, for over a decade, due to climate change. The report states "weather-related crises have triggered more than twice as much displacement as conflict and violence in the last decade" (UNHCR, 2021). In spite of mounting evidence that climate change is to blame for these catastrophic weather-related events and associated increases in migration, the UNHCR eligibility criteria for refugee status doesn't include climate change. Due to political challenges involved in considering such a definition change, the UN convened member states to establish a global compact for migration that takes the effects of climate change into consideration. The Global Compact suggests rights and obligations of climate change migrants, and standards to guide sovereign states in protecting these rights. Given the growth in climate change related migration over the last decade, and the complicated nature of implementation with such a broad international instrument such as the Global Compact, there is room for development within the climate change and human mobility sector. Course will examine the issue of climate change & its relationship to human mobility using human rights, political ecology, & social policy perspectives; consider how these different perspectives for understanding the problem suggest different types of policy solutions; & consider the impact of these solutions for those affected. FIELD TRIP Sat 05/15

Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): SSAD 69400, HMRT 39401, SSAD 29400, HMRT 29400, CHST 29400, CEGU 29400