Courses

ENVS B101 Introduction to Environmental Studies

Fall 2025

The course offers a cross-disciplinary introduction to environmental studies. Tracing an arc from historical analysis to practical engagement, distinctive approaches to key categories of environmental inquiry are presented: political ecology, earth science, energy, economics, public health, ecological design, sustainability, public policy, and environmental ethics. Basic concepts, such as thermodynamics, biodiversity, cost-benefit analysis, scale, modernization, enclosure, the commons, and situational ethics, are variously defined and employed within specific explorations of environmental challenges in the modern world. No divisional credit is awarded for this course at Haverford nor does the course satisfy any of the Bryn Mawr approaches to inquiry.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies.

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ENVS B201 Laboratory in Environmental Sciences

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

A lab-intensive introduction to environmental science research, exploring perspectives on scientific knowledge production, application-oriented scientific reporting, and historical context for sites of study. Includes field sampling and data collection, analysis of multiple datasets, and communication of findings to diverse audiences. Prerequisites: ENVS 101 or permission of instructor.

Scientific Investigation (SI)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies.

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ENVS B202 Environment and Society

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

An exploration of the ways in which different cultural, economic, and political settings have shaped issue emergence and policy making. We examine the politics of particular environmental issues in selected countries and regions, paying special attention to the impact of environmental movements. We also assess the prospects for international cooperation in addressing global environmental problems such as climate change.

Writing Attentive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Political Science.

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ENVS B321 Earth Mending: A History of Waste and a Toolkit for Eco-Repair

Not offered 2025-26

Waste is a pervasive issue in contemporary U.S. life. Why has so much of our world become disposable and how has a waste mindset informed the treatment of people, places, and ecosystems? This course explores histories of environmental waste while seeking a better understanding of repair as a fundamental way to address problems of disposability. We will consider the use of waste and broken things alongside histories of social movements devoted to adaptation, maintenance, and repair. Rooted in case studies from disability history, pyrophyte plants that adapt and thrive in wildfires, and fixit culture, this course surveys what it means to live, and die well, in a culture of mending.

Writing Attentive

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies.

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ENVS B330 Organizing for Climate Action

Spring 2026

To win climate action, you need more than good science, accurate data, and bold ideas. You need power. Behind the scenes of social movements, organizers are setting clear goals, building relationships, and creating meaningful opportunities for others to express their values together. A central premise of this class is that policymaking and social change takes strategic campaigning. Whether you aim to lead campus organizations more effectively, influence public policy, or grow a grassroots movement for a more just and sustainable future, this course will help you develop practical skills for mobilizing collective action.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Political Science.

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ENVS B420 Praxis III Seminar

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Sustainability at BMC

This Praxis III Seminar explores strategies for fostering meaningful change in sustainability. Students work with campus stakeholders to design and implement a project that advances Bryn Mawr College's sustainability goals, committing 8-10 hours per week to applied work. **To be considered for enrollment, students must submit a Praxis III Proposal by the end of the pre-registration period in the semester prior to the course. **

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ANTH B210 Medical Anthropology

Fall 2025

Medical Anthropology is one of the most dynamic subfields in anthropology with relevance for health professionals and researchers interested in the complexity of disease, diagnostic categories, treatment modalities, especially in multicultural contexts. This course examines the relationships between culture, society, disease and illness in light of global, historical, and political and economic forces, in anthropological perspective. It considers a broad range of health-related experiences, discourses, knowledge and practices among different cultures globally and among diverse individuals and groups in different positions of power. We will explore illness experiences, disease etiologies, practices and rituals surrounding healing, patients and social groups, practitioners, biomedicine, traditional medicine and other forms of medical knowledge cross-culturally, epistemologies and practices, and the production of health and medical knowledge in a variety of settings, among other topics. While disease may appear to be a matter of biology, health and illness are culturally constructed and socially conditioned and essential in anthropological approaches to understanding human experiences of affliction and well-being. In this course we will ask: how are ideas of health, illness, and healing intertwined with belief, ideas about culture, concerns of social relations and social organization, and how they influence or are influenced by political and economic relations?

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies; Health Studies; Health Studies.

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ANTH B237 Anthropology of Environmental Health In Global Perspective

Spring 2026

In what ways can environmental and medical anthropology work with public health and other disciplines, communities, and more to create knowledge and resources to address global health and environmental changes as the planet increases in population and temperature, diseases change, and people get sicker? This course will introduce students to the anthropological study of the relationships between society, health, environment, and public health in cross-cultural perspective. It also will introduce key principles and concepts in environmental health and anthropology. In this class we will explore changing patterns of chronic and infectious disease related to environmental and climate change; entanglements between humans and non-human life forms; inequality, marginalization, and environmental justice in cross-cultural perspective; gender inequity and climate change; environmental racism; the intersection of environment and migration, and displacement due to armed conflict; urbanization changes in the relationship between humans and the built-environment; chemical pollution, land use, food systems, health, and sustainability; governance and planetary health, and more, for a greater understanding of the dynamic relationships between the environment, health, and disease in the 21st Century.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Health Studies.

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ANTH B244 Global Perspectives on Early Farmers and Social Change

Spring 2026

Throughout most of human history, our ancestors practiced lifestyles centered on gathering wild plants and hunting non-domesticated animals. Today, however, a globalized agricultural economy supports a population of over eight billion people. The widespread adoption of agriculture changed the course of history and is described by many as the most consequential cultural transition ever undertaken by humans. This course draws on information produced by archaeologists around the world to examine this major historical shift, while asking big questions such as: What impact did the adoption of agriculture have on past communities and cultures, and how did farming spread to different world regions? Did farming contribute to population growth, inequality, urbanization, and/or warfare? Did it set the stage for our own societies today?

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies.

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ANTH B254 Anthropology and Social Science Research Methods

Spring 2026

This course is designed for students interested in learning ethnographic and qualitative social science methods, and how to analyze qualitative results. Through hands on fieldwork, students will learn and practice ethnographic field methods, for example, observation, participant observation, interviewing, use of visual media and drawing, life stories, generating and analyzing data, and ways to productively transform qualitative data into contextual information. Ethics in ethnographic research will be a central theme, as will envisioning and designing projects that protect human subjects. The purpose of this course is to provide anthropology majors and students in social sciences, humanities, as well as STEM majors with interests in multi-method research, an opportunity to learn methods in advance of their thesis proposal and research, Hanna Holborn Gray summer research, and other social science independent research opportunities during their undergraduate experience, and post-graduation.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies.

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ANTH B354 Political Economy, Gender, Ethnicity and Transformation in Vietnam

Not offered 2025-26

Today, Vietnam is in the midst of dramatic social, economic and political changes brought about through a shift from a central economy to a market/capitalist economy since the late 1980s. These changes have resulted in urbanization, a rise in consumption, changes in land use, movement of people, environmental consequences of economic development, and shifts in social and economic relationships and cultural practices as the country has moved from low income to middle income status. This course examines culture and society in Vietnam focusing largely on contemporary Vietnam, but with a view to continuities and historical precedent in past centuries. In this course, we will draw on anthropological studies of Vietnam, as well as literature and historical studies. Relationships between the individual, family, gender, ethnicity, community, land, and state will pervade the topics addressed in the course, as will the importance of political economy, nation, and globalization. In addition to class seminar discussions, students will view documentary and fictional films about Vietnamese culture. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or higher or first years with ANTH 102.

Writing Attentive

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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CITY B190 Form of the City: Histories of the Built Environment

Spring 2026

This course studies the city as a three-dimensional artifact. A variety of factors, geography, economic and population structure, politics, planning, and aesthetics are considered as determinants of urban form.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; History of Art.

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CITY B201 Introduction to GIS for Social and Environmental Analysis

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

This course is designed to introduce the foundations of GIS with emphasis on applications for social and environmental analysis. It deals with basic principles of GIS and its use in spatial analysis and information management. Ultimately, students will design and carry out research projects on topics of their own choosing. Prerequisite: At least sophomore standing and Quantitative Readiness are required (i.e.the quantitative readiness assessment or Quan B001).

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Counts Toward: Classical & Near Eastern Arch; Data Science; Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies.

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CITY B377 Topics in Modern Architecture

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Queer Pedagogies

Fall 2025

This is a topics course on modern architecture. Topics vary.

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; History of Art.

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EALC B353 The Environment on China's Frontiers

Fall 2025

This seminar explores environmental issues on China's frontiers from a historical perspective. It focuses on the particular relationship between the environment and the frontier, examining how these two variables have interacted. The course will deal with the issues such as the relationship between the environment and human ethnic and cultural traditions, social movements, economic growth, political and legal institutions and practices, and changing perceptions. The frontier regions under discussion include Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and the southwestern ethnic areas, which are all important in defining what China is and who the Chinese are.

Counts Toward: East Asian Languages & Culture; Environmental Studies; International Studies.

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ENGL B372 Black Ecofeminism(s): Critical Approaches

Not offered 2025-26

How have Black feminist authors and traditions theorized or represented the ecological world and their relationship to it? How does thinking intersectionally about gender(ing) and racialization expand or challenge conventional notions of "nature," conservation, or environmental justice? In what ways does centering racial blackness critically reframe a host of practical and philosophical questions historically brought together under the sign "ecofeminism?" Combining history and theory, the humanities and the social sciences, this interdisciplinary course will use the work of Black feminist writers (broadly defined) across a range of genres to approach and to trouble the major paradigms and problems of contemporary Euro-American ecofeminist thought. The course uses fiction and poetry by Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, and Countee Cullen as a gateway to a range of critical work by Jennifer Morgan, Sylvia Wynter, Maria Mies, and Val Plumwood as it attempts to define and deconstruct what Chelsea Frazier calls "Black Feminist Ecological Thought."

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Africana Studies; Environmental Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies.

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GEOL B108 Earth's Oceans: Past, Present, and Future

Spring 2026

This course is designed to expose students to the fundamentals of oceanography with an emphasis on how Earth's oceans are tied to life and climate and how we study these links in the present and in the fossil record. We will spend much time understanding how the modern ocean works and how biogeochemical cycles interact with it. A major focus will be how we can use the ocean's past and present to make predictions about its future. This is a flipped course in which students study pre-recorded presentations outside of class. Class time is devoted to labs, demonstrations, and other activities.

Scientific Investigation (SI)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies.

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GEOL B203 Biosphere Through Time

Fall 2025

We will explore how the Earth-life system has evolved through time by studying the interactions between life, climate, and tectonic processes. During the lab component of the course, we will study important fossil groups to better understand their paleoecology and roles in the Earth-life system. Prerequisite: GEOL B101, GEOL B108, or GEOL B209.

Scientific Investigation (SI)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies.

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GEOL B206 Energy Resources and Sustainability

Not offered 2025-26

An examination of issues concerning the supply of energy required by humanity. This includes an investigation of the geological framework that determines resource availability, aspects of energy production and resource development and the science of global climate change. Two 90-minute lectures a week. Suggested preparation: one year of college science.

Scientific Investigation (SI)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies.

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GEOL B209 Natural Hazards

Spring 2026

A quantitative approach to understanding Earth processes that impact human societies. We will examine earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, storms, and floods and explore the risks that they pose to communities. Course emphases include the fundamental physical principles and processes that govern natural hazards, approaches to mitigating the effects of natural disasters and responding in their aftermath, and examples of natural disasters from the recent and historical past. Lecture three hours a week.

Quantitative Methods (QM)

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Scientific Investigation (SI)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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GERM B259 Unnatural Encounters: The Environment in German Literature

Fall 2025

Germany is recognized as world leader in innovative sustainability practices and has long been a site of social and political organization around the environment. This course will explore encounters with and in the natural world in German literature, film, and the visual arts as reflections of or agents of social, political, and technological change. While these encounters are rooted in the philosophical divide between self and world, they embody questions of gender, urbanism, preservation, alienation, marginalization, and "homeland" in ways that galvanize political and social movements locally and nationally, real and imagined. The course is centered on different loci of encounters with the environment, including forests of fairy tales, coastlines and rivers, mountains, mines, agricultural and industrialized urban spaces. It will also consider the human-made environment, waste, and energy sources as places of encounter and transformation.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies.

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HART B220 Critical Approaches to Visual Representation: Landscapes, Art, & Racial Ecologies

Spring 2026

This course is writing intensive. This course uses art, visual, and material culture to trace the plantation's centrality to colonial and post-colonial environments in the Atlantic World from the eighteenth century to the present, as a site of environmental destruction as well as parallel ecologies engendered by African-descended peoples' aesthetic and botanical contestation. Objects to be considered include landscape painting, plantation cartography, scientific imagery, environmental art, and ecologically motivated science fiction. This course was formerly numbered HART B111; students who previously completed HART B111 may not repeat this course. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Writing Intensive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Environmental Studies.

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INST B201 Themes in International Studies

Fall 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Anthropology; Environmental Studies.

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POLS B205 European Politics: Coming Together or Falling Apart?

Spring 2026

Coming together or falling apart - which best describes the state of European politics in the third decade of the 21st century? In this course we will analyze both trends, exploring the changing relationship between supranational organizations, states, and societies in Europe. The European Union is one of the most ambitious experiments in international cooperation ever attempted. Despite the EU's many successes, sources of conflict between and within European countries have persisted. With the recent Greek financial crisis ("Grexit"), the Syrian refugee crisis, Britain's departure ("Brexit"), and the rise of far-right nationalist parties in many member countries, and the twin refugee and energy crises precipitated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the union is starting to look frayed around the edges. In fact, each move toward European unity has dropped barriers for some while raising them for others. In this course, we will explore European politics from the edges, from the borders separating the included from the excluded. These borders may be geographical, political, socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, or cultural in nature. Our focus will be on political initiatives from the bottom up and the outside in. From this perspective, we will try to make sense of the interactions that produce cross-cutting pressures toward European unification on the one hand and toward dissolution of the European experiment on the other. We will cover issue areas such as migrant labor, housing and urban quality of life, immigration and refugee policy, public health, marriage equality, education and collective memory, defense and security, and information politics.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies.

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POLS B256 Global Politics of Climate Change

Fall 2025

This course will introduce students to important political issues raised by climate change locally, nationally, and internationally, paying particular attention to the global implications of actions at the national and subnational levels. It will focus not only on specific problems, but also on solutions; students will learn about some of the technological and policy innovations that are being developed worldwide in response to the challenges of climate change. Only open to students in 360 program.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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RUSS B232 Coal, Oil, Nuclear: Narrative Afterlives

Not offered 2025-26

Coal. Oil. Nuclear energy. These items give shape to our everyday lives in countless ways. They impact our health, our politics, and our very survival on earth.. Nevertheless, because these resources permeate nearly every aspect of our existence, the human mind can struggle to comprehend them in their totality. In this course, we'll explore texts that engage with our environment to help us bring humans' relationship to these materials into focus. Scientific, historical, and economic studies tend to focus on their scale and widespread impact. Reading stories, watching

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Comparative Literature; Environmental Studies; International Studies.

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