Sample Syllabus

Some readings that instructors are assigning with Green Illusions:

Green Illusions Introduction: “Unraveling the Spectacle”

Green Illusions Ch.1: “Solar Cells and Other Fairy Tales”

• Curtis White. The Barbaric Heart: Capitalism and the Crisis of Nature. Orion Magazine (http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4680/).
• Vaclav Smil. A Skeptic Looks at Alternative Energy. IEEE Spectrum (http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/a-skeptic-looks-at-alternative-energy/0).

 

Green Illusions Ch.2: “Wind Power’s Flurry of Limitations”

• American Wind Energy Association. Major new technical report finds wind can provide 20% of U.S. electricity needs by 2030. (http://www.awea.org/newsroom/pressreleases/release_051208.cfm)
• Dvora Yanow. How Does a Policy Mean? 1996. (Introduction and Ch.1).
• Ralph Vartabedian. Rise in renewable energy will require more use of fossil fuels. LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-unreliable-power-20121210,0,6250142.story)

 

Green Illusions Ch.3: “Biofuels and the Politics of Big Corn”

• Dennis Keeney. Ethanol USA. Environmental Science and Technology (http://bio.uwex.edu/library/documents/keeney_ethanolusa_HR1.pdf).
• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: Kristin S. Shrader-Frechette “Introduction to Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy”.

 

Green Illusions Ch.4: “The Nuclear-Military-Industrial Risk Complex”

• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: Lawrence Lessig “Code Is Law”.
• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch “The Naked Launch: Assigning Blame for the Challenger Explosion”.
• Ladka Bauerova and Carol Matlack. Nuke-Free Germany Isn’t Exactly Nuke-Free, Bloomberg Business Week (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/nukefree-germany-isnt-exactly-nukefree-09292011.html)
• Film: Into Eternity (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/science/11nuclear.html)

 

Green Illusions Ch.5: “The Hydrogen Zombie”

• U.S Department of Energy. Fuel Cell Report to Congress (http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/fc_report_congress_feb2003.pdf).
• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker “The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts”.

 

Green Illusions Ch.6: “Conjuring Clean Coal”

• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: “Introduction to Part II: The Relationship Between Technology and Society”.
• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: Thomas P. Hughes “Technological Momentum”.

 

Green Illusions Ch.7: “Hydropower, Hybrids, and Other Hydras”

• Leigh Glover. From Love-ins to Logos (http://www.ceep.udel.edu/energy/publications/2006_es_love-ins_to_logos.pdf).
• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: Daniel Sarewitz “Pas de Trois: Science, Technology, and the Marketplace”.

 

Green Illusions Ch.8: “The Alternative-Energy Fetish”

• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: E.M. Forster “The Machine Stops”.
• Video: Naomi Oreskes. Merchants of Doubt (http://vimeo.com/16169321).
• Shannon May. “Ecological Modernism and the Making of a New Working Class” in Adrian Parr and Michael Zaretsky, New Directions in Sustainable Design (New York and London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 37-51.
• Curtis White. The Philanthropic Complex. Jacobin (http://jacobinmag.com/2012/04/the-philanthropic-complex/)

 

Green Illusions Ch.9: “The First Step”

• BK Sovacool. 2007. “Coal and nuclear technologies: creating a false dichotomy for American energy policy.” Policy Sciences 40:101-122.
• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: Bruce Schneier “Security Trade-Offs Are Subjective” and “Technology Creates Security Imbalances”.
• Charles Lindblom. Inquiry and Change (Introduction, Ch.1, Ch. 2).

 

Green Illusions Ch.10: “Women’s Rights”

• James Gustave Speth. The Bridge at the End of the World. 2008 (Ch.5 – Moving to a Postgrowth Society).
• Video: Albert Bartlett, The Essential Exponential! For the Future of Our Planet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY).
• Film: GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth (http://www.growthbusters.org/)

 

Green Illusions Ch.11: “Improving Consumption”

• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: Jameson M. Wetmore “Amish Technology: Reinforcing Values and Building Community”.
• James Gustave Speth. The Bridge at the End of the World. 2008 (Ch.6 – Real Growth: Promoting the Well-being of People and Nature & Ch. 7 – Consumption: Living with Enough, Not Always More).

 

Green Illusions Ch.12: “The Architecture of Community”

• James Scott, “Authoritarian High Modernism,” in Seeing like a State. How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale UP, 1998), pp. 87-102.
• Jane Jacobs, “The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety” in Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout (eds.), The City Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 103-108.
• Roger K Lewis, “As land use planning changes, ‘zoning’ is no longer appropriate” The Washington Post, February 15, 2013. Full Article

 

Green Illusions Ch.13: “Efficiency Culture”

• Anselm Waldermann. Wind Turbines in Europe Do Nothing for Emissions-Reduction Goals, Speigel (http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/climate-change-paradox-wind-turbines-in-europe-do-nothing-for-emissions-reduction-goals-a-606763.html).
• Witold Rybczynski. Home: A Short Story of an Idea. 1986.
• David Owen. The Efficiency Dilemma. The New Yorker (http://www.davidowen.net/files/the-efficiency-dilemma.pdf)

 

Green Illusions Ch.14: “Asking Questions”

• Kingsnorth, Paul. 2013. “Dark Ecology.” Orion, February. (http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7277)
• Nuke-Free Germany Isn’t Exactly Nuke-Free Bloomberg Businessweek (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/nukefree-germany-isnt-exactly-nukefree-09292011.html).
• Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future: Bill Joy “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”.
• Film: There’s No Tomorrow, Dir. Dermot O’Connor available for free online: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg)