Topic: Culture, Social Movements, and Building a Better World
If we are going to build a more equal, more sustainable and environmentally friendly future world, how might we have to change our cultural relationship to nature and social life as we live it every day? What sort of cultural production (video, fiction, spoken word, art, music, etc.) do you think could play a role? Be as specific as you can.
What sort of social movement might bring all this about?
Feel free to bring in materials from the class project and relate them to readings, films, and any other relevant material from lecture. Oh, and don’t forget your imagination!
List of readings and films can be used as references in the essay.
The Current Situation: Crisis and Opportunity
“A crisis, says one dictionary, is ‘the point in the progress of a disease when a change takes place which is decisive of recovery or death; also, any marked or sudden change of symptoms, etc.’ This crisis could be the death or the recovery of a more democratic, more inclusive, more generous America. Where we go from here is up to us.”
Rebecca Solnit, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/18/resistance-victories- trump-mounting-final-blow
*Angus Hervey, “99 Reasons 2017 Was a Great Year” (December 6, 2017), https://medium.com/future-crunch/99- reasons-2017-was-a-good-year-d119d0c32d19
John W. Whitehead, “Apocalypse Now: 2017 Was Another Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year” (December 28, 2017), https://dissidentvoice.org/2017/12/apocalypse-now- 2017-was-another-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-year/
Introduction to the Crisis
a look at the nature of the intersecting crises humanity faces, along with an examination of our feelings about living at this crucial moment in history.
We will also begin to screen the video:
Capitalism Is The Crisis: Radical Politics in the Age of Austerity (directed by Michael Truscello, 2011, 99 minutes), a radical documentary that examines the roots of the Great Recession of 2008-9 and a shows a variety of paths out of the current crisis, including that of the global justice movement, http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/capitalism-is-the-crisis/
Introduction to the Resistance
Yet where there is crisis, there is resistance, and her we survey the world scene in the 21st-century, as seen by one of the leading scholar-activists in these Struggles.
Readings:
Richard Eskow “50 Years After 1968, Can the Young Change Politics? A Striking New Poll Says Yes” (June 6, 2018), https://portside.org/2018-06-06/50-years-after-1968-can-young- change-politics-striking-new-poll-says-yes
Kristine Mattis, “We Are Barely Even Trying” (April 13, 2017), https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/13/we-are-barely-even-trying/
The Name of the Crisis is Climate Change
“There is no more potent weapon in the battle against fossil fuels than the creation of real alternatives.”
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate *
Degrowth
We will entertain the notion that less economic production could lead to a vastly better world, especially in the wealthy countries of the global North.
Readings:
Life in a ‘degrowth’ economy, and why you might actually enjoy it
https://theconversation.com/life-in-a-degrowth-economy-and-why-you-might-actually-enjoy-it-32224
Riccardo Mastini, “Work in a World without Growth” (June 6, 2018), https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-06-06/work-in- a-world-without-growth/
Jonathan Rutherford, “How Do You Degrow an Economy, Without Causing Chaos?” (May 15, 2017), http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-05-15/how-do-you- degrow-an-economy-without-causing-chaos/
Transition Towns from Totnes to Toledo
We will introduce the concept of a Just Transition and explore one set of alternative models for the future: the local visions of sustainable transition towns and resilient eco-villages found all over the world.
Please take at least 10-15 minutes to explore these websites: Transition United States –
http://www.transitionus.org/about-us
Common Transition Primer website:
Global Ecovillage Network –
http://gen.ecovillage.org/en/article/what-ecovillage
Readings:
Ester Alloun and Samuel Alexander, “The Transition Movement: Questions of Diversity, Power, and Affluence,” Simplicity Institute (August 2014), http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-08-18/the- transition-movement-questions-of-diversity-power-and-affluence/
Naresh Giangrande, “Seven Lessons on Starting a Worldwide Movement for Change” (February 9, 2018), http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-02-09/seven-lessons-on- starting-a-worldwide-movement-for-change/
Rob Hopkins and Ted Trainer, “Always the Same, Always Different” (June 14, 2018), https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-06- 14/always-the-same-always-different-a-response-to-ted-trainer/
Stephanie Van Hook, “What is Transition?” (March 14, 2017),
Please explore the movie’s website, which is rich in content, solutions, and ideas for this class:
https://www.demain-lefilm.com/en/film
Readings:
Rob Hopkins, “The unstoppable rise of ‘Demain’” (February 5, 2016), http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-02-05/the-unstoppable-rise-of- demain
The Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth
we will consider the global South’s leading two alternative models for a better future, including 1) the indigenous concept of Buen Vivir/Sawmaq Kawsay (whose meaning s roughly “living better”) – a perspective on the future from the Global South taken together with one of the most radical documents ever written, the “Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth,”
The Pachamama Alliance –
http://www.pachamama.org/about/mission
The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature –
http://therightsofnature.org/
Readings :
World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth “Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth,” Cochabamba, Bolivia (April 27, 2010), 1-3, http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=2268
Dalai Lama, “Universal Responsibility and the Climate Emergency” (December 5, 2009), https://shambhalatimes.org/2009/12/05/universal-responsibility- and-the-climate-emergency/
Andreas Weber and Hildegard Kurt, “Towards Cultures of Aliveness: Politics and Poetics in a Postdualistic Age, an Anthropocene Manifesto.” Originally published by The Solutions Journal (December 17, 2015), http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-12-17/towards-cultures- of-aliveness-politics-and-poetics-in-a-postdualistic-age-an- anthropocene-manifesto#
“Understanding the Native Roots of the Constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador: The 25 Principles of Good Living.” Source: Vibromancia / The Dawn News / November 11, 2015, http://www.thedawn-news.org/2017/09/15/understanding-the- native-roots-of-the-constitutions-of-bolivia-and-ecuador-the-25- principles-of-good-living/
Dan O’Neill, “Is it Possible for Everyone to Live a Good Life within our Planet’s Limits?” (February 8, 218), http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-02-08/is-it-possible-for- everyone-to-live-a-good-life-within-our-planets-limits/ Also published in a more scholarly version in Nature Sustainability (1) (February 2018): 88-95, at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0021-4
We will also take a look at a film that embodies the global spirit of Occupy…
Film Occupy Love (directed by Velcrow Ripper, Fierce Love Films, 86
minutes, 2013), http://occupylove.org/
Film
Capitalism Is The Crisis:
Radical Politics in the Age of Austerity, a radical documentary that examines the roots of the Great Recession of 2008-9 and a shows a variety of paths out of the current crisis, including that of the global justice movement, http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/capitalism-is-the-crisis/
Please explore the movie’s website, which is rich in content, solutions, and ideas for this class:
https://www.demain-lefilm.com/en/film
Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next
Occupy love