Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

THIS  UNUSUAL ONLINE COURSE provides an introduction to the intimate relation between culture, animals and environment. It includes the concept of culture, scrutiny of what is called the "environment" with its physical, behavioral and perceptual aspects, and the roles of the creatures who inhabit it. A complex behavioral interface ties these together of which culture, the human capacity and characteristic that includes our beliefs, values and consequent activities, lies at the heart for all human societies and certainly in relation to our relation with the environment; we will look closely at this ignored interface. Culture includes profound contrasts, complexities and seeming contradictions, and these all take place in some existing space-time-place setting and dynamics, i.e., an environment. Using an anthropological perspective including ethnographic documentaries and films, the course introduces, reviews and discusses the cores of culture, environment and the individual with particular awareness of them as (1) complex systems in themselves, (2) parts of an global "ecoculture" that is in turn part of an emerging global metaculture, and (3) parts of the requirements of the living entities that use it including their energy and information needs; together, these provide an integrated and functional datum for the course and our lives. 

THE COURSE INTRODUCES A VARIETY of concepts reflecting basic characteristics of this metasystem, the complex of other sets of relations and interactions. It introduces you to principles, concepts and realities concerning systems, environment and the powerful and determinant cultural values, implicit and explicit, that have their traditional consistencies and yet are changing and are in turn changed by today's global activities and resulting landscapes, and alter the interactive nature of our human ecosystem for all species. It will keep you nicely busy with a variety of weekly activities: discussions, focal summaries, visuals, reading sources, two brief topical papers, a midterm and a final, and a brief and relevant personal project. The instructor is an anthropologist with particular interests in medical anthropology and cultural ecology, and extensive experience in teaching, fieldwork, consultation, projects and publications in developing and industrialized societies, and brings these into the class in a realistic and meaningful sense.

FOUR PAPERBACK BOOKS ARE USED in the course. This may seem a lot, yet it's reasonable since each speaks to a vital part of our interface with culture and the environment, they are concise paperbacks, and we use them selectively. Students taking the course earlier have enjoyed them, and they are selected to deliver what you need to know:

environmental ethics - an introduction to environmental philosophy, 5th edition  Joseph Desjardins, Wadsworth 2013, ISBN 978-1-133-04997-7. This is an excellent and readable summary, a small classic in its own right, of the ethical aspects of ecological concerns; these are major, deep, often subtle and usually ignored.

Thinking in Systems - A Primer  Donella H. Meadows, Chelsea Green Publishing 2008, ISBN 978-1-60358-055-7. This is an unusually readable and very useful introduction to the use of systems, imperative in discussing ecological relations, and for some relevant statistics; these are vital for understanding the reality and data of the ecodynamics of the world, and very useful in the general sense too.  

People and Nature - An Introduction to Human Ecological Relations,  Emilio F. Moran, Blackwell, 2nd edition, 2017, ISBN 978-1-118-87747. This is a core introduction to human and cultural ecology; there is also an earlier edition re cost; the 2nd edition is preferred yet both are acceptable and the used prices are very reasonable.

A Citizen's Guide to Ecology, Lawernce B. Slobodkin, Oxford 2003, ISBN 0-19-516287-0. This is a personal introduction to the concerns and issues of ecology, on anl approach to living with and within ecology, as we all do, aware or not; it should be very inexpensive now online. 

These are all in paperback and available in the PCC Sylvia bookstore, new and spiffy or used and iconic. They are also available online; Amazon, Powell's, and the instructor's favorite: abebooks.com for inexpensive used copies.The course uses these four together selectively as it proceeds towards our goal of developing awareness, knowledge and appreciation of core realities in cultural ecology for our world today: the environment as mediated by culture, culture as mediated by the environment, the cultural values operative in both domains, and the creatures wittingly and unwittingly involved. So we deal with both ethics and practicality, and these four paperbacks provide a realistic and interesting matrix for serious concerns that are now truly global. 

UNCERTAIN ABOUT TAKING AN ONLINE CLASS?  Well, (1) the mechanics of actually doing this course are built into it and are very clear and accessible (it's a popular and proven OL course adapted from a f2f class), and (2) it is entirely possible to feel part of a group and communicate personally in an online course; in fact, THAT is exactly what we do in it. Hope to meet you virtually!

Dr. K. J. Pataki

 only a computer