ENST 182 - Climate Change and the Apocalypse

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as RELI 182) Human beings have been imagining the end of the world since the beginning. In the 20^th and 21^st centuries, a new specter of cosmic destruction has revealed itself: human-caused climate change. How does this latest threat compare with earlier imagined endings? Do religious actors and communities draw on their respective apocalyptic traditions to make sense of climate change, or do previous forms of apocalypticism become less relevant in the face of this concrete disaster?

This course has two functions. The first is to understand how cosmic finitude is a central feature in various religions, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and different Native American traditions. To do this, we examine sources ranging from scripture to television series.

The second task is to take stock of the ways different religions are responding to climate change, whether that means efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change in community activism, new forms of spirituality and theology, or else refusing to engage. We attend to how this challenge motivates new considerations of community, that is, what it means to belong to a religious community, but crucially also what it means to be a part of the broader community of the human species, and the community that encompasses all living organisms on Earth. Klaus Yoder.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS