Syllabus

Rhetoric 181: Green Rhetoric
Fall 2009

Tu/Th 5-6.30 156 Dwinelle
Instructor: Dale Carrico; dalec@berkeley.edu
Course Site: http://greenrhet.blogspot.com/

Provisional Grade Breakdown:
Att/Part 20%; Co-facilitation/Precis 20%; In-Class Report 20%; Final Exam: 40%

Provisional Schedule of Classes

Prologue

August 27 -- Administrative Introduction

Supplementary Readings:
Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying
John Stuart Mill, On Nature

Week One | Introductions

September 1 -- Personal Introductions
September 3 -- Screening: "An Inconvenient Truth"

Week Two | Green Idols and Precursors

September 8 --

Curtis White, The Idols of Environmentalism
Curtis White, The Ecology of Work
Aldo Leopold, The Land Ethic
Aldo Leopold, Thinking Like a Mountain

September 10

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
Henry David Thoreau Walden

Week Three | Deep Ecology and Deep Economy

September 15

Arne Naess, The Shallow and the Deep
Arne Naess and George SessionsDeep Ecology Platform
Alan Drengson, Deep Ecology Movement
Church of Deep Ecology

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Olivia Hanning; Jeremy Park

September 17

Murray Bookchin, Social Ecology Versus Deep Ecology
Bill McKibben, Reversal of Fortune
An Interview with E. F. Schumacher

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report:

Week Four | Political Ecology, Green Urbanity

Tuesday, September 22

Mike Davis, Slum Ecology
Mike Davis and Anthony Fontenot Twenty-five Questions about the Murder of the Big Easy
Mike Davis, Sinister Paradise: Does the Road to the Future End at Dubai?
David Biello, Eco-Cities: Urban Planning for the Future
Frank Lloyd Wright, A City for the Future
Frank Lloyd Wright, Broadacre City Project
Frank Lloyd Wright, Broadacre City Plan
Paolo Soleri, Arcosanti

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Shannon Kelli

Thursday, September 24

LEED
Architecture for Humanity: Completed Projects
Architecture 2030
Going Green....Is it the Elephant in the Room?

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Tessa Stuart;

Week Five | Eco-feminism

Tuesday, September 29

Cathleen McGuire and Colleen McGuire, Ecofeminist Visions
Rosemary Radford Reuther, Ecofeminism
Catherine Keller, Dark Vibrations: Ecofeminism and the Democracy of Creation

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Audrey Noelani Vavia;

Thursday, October 1

Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands, Unnatural Passions: Notes Toward a Queer Ecology
UNIFEM, Women, Climate Change, and Refugees
Amy Goodman, Sedatives and Sex Hormones in Our Water Supply
Interview with Vandana Shiva

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Andrea Bella;

Week Six | Environmental Justice

Tuesday, October 6

The Rio Declaration
The Johannesburg Declaration
EPA Environmental Justice FAQ
About the Environmental Justice Foundation
Ludovic Blain, Ain't I An Environmentalist?

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report:

Thursday, October 8

Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D., Poverty, Pollution, and Environmental Racism
Environmental Racism Study Finds Levels Of Inequality Defy Simple Explanation
Lisa Campbell Salazar, National Parks and Environmental Racism
Minority Communities Need More Parks

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report:

Week Seven | Eco-socialism and Social Ecology

Tuesday, October 13

An Ecosocialist Manifesto by Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy
Joel Kovel, Why Ecosocialism Today?
Common Voice, Ecosocialism

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report:

Thursday, October 15

James O'Conner: Selling Nature
James Boyle, Enclosing the Genome
Vandana Shiva, The US Patent System Legalizes Theft and Biopiracy
Richard Stallman, Biopiracy or Bioprivateering?

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Karena Ajamian;

Week Eight | Natural Capitalism and Greenwashing

Tuesday, October 20

Paul Hawken: Natural Capitalism
A Roadmap for Natural Capitalism, Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins, Paul Hawken
Michael Albert: Natural Capitalism?
OpenPolitics Critiques of Paul Hawken and Natural Capitalism
Balancing Act
Nau
About Triplepundit

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: James Dozier;

Thursday, October 22

What Is Greenwashing?
How Greenwashing Works
Greenwashing Index
Peter Barnes: Capitalism, 3.0

Introduction
Time to Upgrade
A Short History of Capitalism
The Limits of Government
The Limits of Privatization
Reinventing the Commons
Trusteeship of Creation
Universal Birthrights
Sharing Culture
Building the Commons Sector
What You Can Do

Cap and Trade Musical Chairs
Cap-and-Trade More Effective than Carbon Tax
Carry on Polluting
Did Environmentalists Get Played on Cap and Trade?

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report:

Week Nine | Bright Green or Dim? Sustainable Technoculture and Techno-Utopian Futurology

Tuesday, October 27

Bruce Sterling, Viridian Design Speech
Bruce Sterling, Manifesto of January 3, 2000
Bruce Sterling, Viridian Principles
Bruce Sterling, Last Viridian Note
Grist on Worldchanging's Bright Green Principles (read the Comments!)
Worldchanging Geoengineering Retrospective
Time Magazine on Geoengineering
Lifeboat Foundation "ClimateShield"

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report:

Thursday, October 29

National Geographic, Toxic Computer
When 1st Life Meets 2nd Life
Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, The California Ideology
Jedediah Purdy The God of the Digerati
Marc Stiegler, The Gentle Seduction
John Zerzan, Technology
John Zerzan, Why Primitivism?
Kirkpatrick Sale, Lessons from the Luddites

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report:

Week Ten | From Agriculture to Polyculture

Tuesday, November 3

John Zerzan, Agriculture
Malcome Scully, The Destructive Nature of Our Bountiful Harvests
Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry, A 50-Year Farm Bill
Lisa Hamilton, Let's grow a new crop of farmers
Ted Nace, Breadbasket of Democracy
Seeds of Resistance
Dale Allen Pfeiffer, Eating Fossil Fuels

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report:

Thursday, November 5

Permaculture Design Principles, Online Interactive Presentation
Permaculture 101, Short Video Presentations
Introduction to Permaculture: Concepts and Resources, Online Compendium

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Tess Ranahan

Week Eleven | Green Eats

Tuesday, November 10

Jill Richardson, Organic White House Garden Puts Some Conventional Panties in a Twist (Follow the links and read the comments)
Kathy Freston, Vegetarian Is the New Prius
Clara Jeffrey, Michael Pollan Fixes Dinner
Claudia Deutsch, Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change
David Rogers, On PETA's Latest Campaign
Jane Liaw, Food Miles Are Less Important to Environment Than Food Choices

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Sam Tobin;

Thursday, November 12

Jack Kloppenberg, Sharon Lerzberg, Kathryn De Master, Tasting Food, Tasting Sustainability
Cornell University, Factsheet: Consumer Concerns About Pesticides in Food
Paul Roberts, Organic and Local Is So 2008
Jim Hightower, Food Industry Is Now Calling Junk Food Healthy
Brian Howard, Meaningful Labels
Marc Abrahams, Food for Thought
Anna Lenzer, Spin the Bottle
Saul Landau, Reagan and Bottled Water

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Christina S.

Week Twelve | Extracting Ourselves From Extraction

Tuesday, November 17

Michael T. Klare, The Coming Resource Wars
BBC: World Water Crisis
The Coming Water Wars: Demography and Water Resources
The Coming Water Wars: Chart
Kate Kelland, Antibiotics Overuse Threatens Medicine
David Korten on Democracy Now From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Ashley Russell

Thursday, November 19

Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency
Howard Kunstler, A Five Part Online Video Exploration: The Long Emergency
Chris Vernon, Agriculture Meets Peak Oil

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Lauren Klein

Week Thirteen | Toxic World

Tuesday, November 24

Al Gore, Introduction to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
Ten Worst Anthropogenic and Natural Environmental Disasters
What Happened at Bhopal?
Learn More
Pollution Facts
Worst Polluted Places (2007)
Worst Pollution Problems (2008)
12 Cases of Cleanup and Success (2009)

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report:

Thursday, November 26 Thanksgiving Holiday

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report:

Week Fourteen | Green Ethos

Tuesday/Thursday, December 1/3

Many Reports, Many Questions, Discussion of Mores/Ethos-Morals/Ethics, Evaluations; the Distribution of Discussions of the Readings for This Week Will Depend on How/When Other Business Shakes Out. Everyone who has not given a Report must be prepared to do so, everyone who has not written a Precis must do so this week.

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, The Death of Environmentalism
Bruno Latour, "It's Development, Stupid!" Or: How to Modernize Modernization
George Lakoff, How We Talk About the Environment Has Everything to Do With Whether We Will Save It

Co-facilitation of Class Discussion/Precis:
In-Class Report: Veronica Turner

Aftermath | Reading/Review/Recitation Period -- Finals Week

Thursday, December 10 -- Extended Office Hours Off-Campus

Monday, December 14: Take-Home Final Exam Due