Course Syllabus

Course Description

Across the globe, climate change and its geopolitical implications – scarcity of resources, growing inequality, mass migration – is disrupting faith in established democratic institutions. On the Left, a variety of grass-roots driven, often youth-led organizations, both protest and disrupt the logics of capitalism, extractivism and destructive growth.  And on the Right, a whole range of 'conservationist' movements have caught on to the language of ecology and landscape, coupling questions of environment and climate, to the issue of protecting local and national cultures. Across the political spectrum in other words, and beyond the arenas of conventional party politics only, a twenty-first century struggle over what 'nature 'is and how it relates to our current politics of borders, identity, or democracy has begun. Some find the answer in restraint: to rewind the forces of industrialism and globalization, and return into nature and the local. Others reach for radical visions of techno-futurism - AI, transhumanism, space colonization - claiming that we need to accelerate, not to halt, the dynamics of expansion and innovation. 

This course enables you to theorize, map and understand that development. We will explore the history and background of contemporary eco-politics – the many and often competing traditions and contexts from which current struggles over not only energy and production, but nature and landscape, springs. We will also combine background readings, guest lectures, and hands-on field trips, to identify key eco-political thinkers, groups and activists today. Furthermore, we will explore the socio-political links between social imaginaries of fear and urgency on the one hand, and the mobilization of radical/disruptive political action on the other. Finally, we will unpack what the revival  local and transnational climate movements means for conventional forms of democracy, the nation-state, the rule of law and the existing world order.

Learning Objectives

The objective of this course is to provide students with an in-depth understanding of how contemporary populist or ‘anti-establishment’ political movements on both the Left and the Right relate and respond to climate change. More specifically, the course will provide students with: 

• A theoretical understanding of what radical political movements are and how they relate to issues of ecology, nature and race. 
• A historical contextualization of eco-political thinkers and utopian movements in Europe and the US - and a deeper understanding of why Left and Right both historically and presently approach issues of 'nature', 'ecology', 'technology' and 'sustainability' from very different starting points.
• A geographical overview and comparison of radical eco-political ideas and movements across the US, Europe and the global South. 
• A sociological understanding of how utopian ideas and grass-roots action attract and appeal in an era of inequality, transformation and anxiety.
• A capacity to reflect upon the ethical questions involved in a politics of urgency and the mobilization of extra-ordinary political means: from civic disobedience to sabotage, terrorism or large scale violence.
• An ability to discuss and critically reflect upon what a radicalized struggle over climate politics may mean for the existing political order.

Faculty

Vibeke Schou Tjalve

Vibeke holds a PhD (2005) from the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, with a research profile in the intersection between political theory, intellectual history, and international relations. She is the author of a very wide range of books and articles on democracy, technology, ecology, justice and war. Over the past couple of years, she has taken a particular interest in climate change, and the radically different utopian visions, which the prospect of looming ecological disaster has spurred on. From 2012-23, she was a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, DIIS, and prior to that, held research positions at the Center for Advanced Security Studies, KU (2009-12), the Center for Military Studies, KU (2006-2009), and the Center for American Studies, University of Southern Denmark (2005-06). She has been a visiting scholar at numerous international institutions, including the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (2001-2002), the National Defense Academy, Washington D.C. (2009), the London School of Economics (2010-11), and the Center for Right Wing Studies, Berkeley (2018, 2022). She remains an affiliate researcher at Berkeley and is a an editorial member of the Berkeley Journal for Right Wing Studies (JRWS). With DIS since 2022. 

Selected Readings

• Bailey, Dan & Joe Turner (2021): "Eco-Bordering: Casting Immigration Control as Environmental Protection", in Environmental Politics 31:1.
• Bunting, Josh & Emily Westwell (2020). “The Regenerative Culture of Extinction Rebellion: self-care, people-care, planet-care”, Environmental Politics, 29:3, pp. 546-551.
• Deudney, Dan (2020). Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
• Forchtner, Bernard (2019). The Far Right and the Environment: Politics, Discourse and Communication. London: Routledge.
• Forchtner, Bernard & Kristoffer Kølvraa (2015). “The Nature of Nationalism: Populist Radical Right Parties on Countryside and Climate”, Nature & Culture 10:2.
• Ghosh, Amitav (2021). The Nutmegs Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis. John Murray Publishers. 
• Harvey, Graham (2017). Animism: Respecting the Living World. Hurst & Company: London.
• Kimmerer, Robin Wall (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Penguin Books. 
• Lederer, Markus & Jens Marquardt (2022): "Politicizing Climate Change in Times of Populism: an introduction", in Environmental Politics 31:5.
• Malm, Andreas (2021). White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism. London: Verso.
• Nye, David (2021): Conflicted American Landscapes. The MIT Press.
• Park, Mi (2013): "The Trouble With Eco-Localism: Too Close to the Far Right?", in Interface: a Journal for and About Social Movements5:2.
• Purdy, Jedidiah (2015). After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 
• Rubenstein, Mary (2023). Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race. Chicago: University of Chicago University Press. 
• Solnit, Rebecca (2014). Savage Dreams: A Journey Into the Hidden Wars of the American West. University of California Press.
• Spectorowski, Alberto (2010). “Ethno-regionalism, ethno-pluralism and the emergence of a Neo-Fascist ‘Third Way’”, Journal of Political Ideologies 8:1.
• Stone, Roger (2022). Populism, Eco-Populism and the Future of Environmentalism.
• Tjalve, Vibeke Schou (2024). Corporate Cosmos: How Commercial American Space Imagines Our Future and Shapes Our Present. DIIS Report 2024:10. 
• Tutton, Richard (2021). “Societal Imaginaries of Techno-Optimism: Examining Outer Space Utopias of Silicon Valley”, Science as Culture, 30:3.

Field Studies and Guest Lectures 

This is an interactive and discussion-based course. It combines teacher lectures and classroom dialogue, with student-driven case studies and scenario building. To make abstract themes tangible and engaging, we will draw on a very wide range of both visual and audio material: art, slogans, documentaries, campaign videos, clips from speeches and rallies.

Moreover, field studies, site visits, workshops and guest speakers will form an integral part of the course. Amongst our several excursions, we will:

• • Visit the Danish eco-village Permatopia.
  • Visit the National Gallery of Art / SMK.
  • Do a forest-walk and workshop with the Lithuanian 'craftivist' Akvilė Buitvydaitė.
  • Engage with youth from various eco-political groups, including Fossil-Fri Fremtid (Fossil Free Future). 
  • Visit The Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), which is a leading Danish research institution on Global Affairs.
  • Watch a screening of the documentary Space Pioneers at the Planetarium. 

Approach to Teaching

This class will be interactive and driven by student participation. Students are expected to submit weekly reflection notes. I also expect all students to actively engage in discussions and will make room for occasional student presentations. The final grade will be based on the following evaluation:

A detailed description of what is expected of students in order to earn a high grade in participation and assignments will be provided in class. Guidelines and expectations for the final essay will also be thoroughly introduced in class.