That every student must take some course in Environmental Studies is mandated by the UGC and, we think, for good reasons. At Ashoka, we are convinced that being exposed to and engaging with issues having to do with the role human beings play in our shared environment is an important part of every student’s education. This course will look at a variety of issues from climate change and species extinction, to socio-economic responsibilities and environmental justice, to address the fundamental question of how do we live at peace with nature.
Department: Environment Science| Semester: Spring 2025
This Course is titled ‘Environment, Development, Climate Change.’ This course offers an overview of the interrelationship between environment, development, and climate change. It examines various concepts and components of the ecosystem and biosphere, and the diverse ways in which human-nonhuman lives exist, cooperate, and compete with each other. It traces the history of development through different phases of human-nature correlation and explains how theories, practices, and questions of globalisation, sustainability, transition, inter-generational equity, gender, health, disasters and green growth have important bearings on our understanding of ecology in present times. In this course, environment and development are also inferred in the context of climate change. It analyses not only how development has led to climate change, but also how climate change is defining our development, which incorporates socio-economic distribution of impacts and burden, energy and carbon emissions, politics of climate change and justice, and alternatives of renewable energy and sustainable transition.
Ghazala Shahabuddin
Department: Environment Science| Semester: Spring 2025
Contemporary Environmental Challenges
The contemporary world is beset with growing environmental problems. The global focus on economic growth and development has led us onto an unsustainable path: growing scientific evidence now suggests that the Earth may not be able to cope with the demands imposed on it. This has created an urgent need to critically examine complex environmental issues from a variety of perspectives. It is necessary to inculcate holistic thinking on environmental challenges and their purported solutions, that includes concerns of social and ecological sustainability. This course will discuss some of the most current concerns related to the environment, as well as societal responses to them, from a multidisciplinary perspective. Water scarcity, climate change, forest degradation, biological extinction, pollution and agrarian distress are some of the issues that will be studied. This course is intended to familiarise students with environmental problems and engender a holistic perspective in understanding causes and possible solutions through the lens of science and equity. This course will encourage students to synthesize information across a variety of sources.Practically the course will be taught using a combination of lectures, movies, slideshows and in-class discussions. Discussion on assigned readings will engender critical thinking and debate in class. Students will undertake group projects on current case studies (such as river pollution, tiger tourism etc.). Assessments will be based on class tests, group projects and class participation.
Department: Environment Science| Semester: Monsoon 2024
This course attempts to provide a holistic understanding of the environment around us,
including its biophysical and narrative elements. This class will provide students with
the understanding and tools to be able to critically examine environmental problems and
their policy solutions in the world today and understand their impacts on environmental
justice.
Semester : Monsoon 2024
This course is meant to introduce students to nature-society dialectics. We will examine the historical, social, and political processes that shape societal relations with the natural environment. The course has three overarching goals. First, it will help students gain an in-depth understanding of some of the pressing environmental issues of our times, such as the agrarian crisis, climate change, disaster and vulnerability, waste, the industrial food system, struggles over water, and neoliberalization of nature, among others. Second, drawing on a variety of theoretical frameworks, including Marxist, feminist, and post-structuralist perspectives, the course will expose students to a breadth of approaches to environmental questions. Finally, through this course, I hope to be able to cultivate a sense of environmental citizenship in students. The course will be taught using a combination of lectures, discussions, films, and group projects.
Semester : Monsoon 2024
Environment has become an important area of interactions between society, politics, economy and culture. This foundation course will focus on diverse sets of social, economic and cultural values and political, ideological and religious views expressed through the environment. The course will discuss how ecological issues are understood in different political and economic systems, ideologies and institutions. In turn, the political, ideological and social essence of ecological problems is manifested by deeply contrasting visions of what structuring society according to nature might mean. Taking a historical approach, the course will strengthen the interaction of natural and social sciences in understanding contemporary environmental politics. The course will give close attention to some prominent environmental and social movements in India, which will significantly enhance the knowledge about new developments in the environment/politics/society interface.