Collins Living-Learning Center

Using anthropological and folkloristic approaches, this course will explore how people turn to their artistic expressions—such as storytelling, cooking, weaving, and more—to understand, react, and adapt to environmental changes. From deforestation in southeast Alaska to deglaciation in the Peruvian Andes, we will consider how humans exercise their cultural traditions to protest, cope with, critique, and endure ecological crises. In doing so, we will also investigate many of the identities and institutions that shape not only who is affected by environmental disasters, but also how cultural expressions can perpetuate or challenge social inequities. Our series of geographically expansive case studies will be accompanied by films, guest speakers, and immersive activities that invite students to consider how environmental changes and creative expressions manifest in disparate cultural contexts, even in our own backyard here in Bloomington.

SustainCollins course – open to all residents.

Instructor: Ben Bridges

Collins Seminars: Selected by Board of Educational Programming (BOEP)

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