Taught By:
Victoria Machado
Visiting Assistant Professor
Environmental Studies
Rollins College
Read LinkedIn profile here.
Motivation to Teach Social Action:
I am a former environmental organizer and I have quite often incorporated elements of campaign organizing into my classes. I'd be very interested in learning this skill alongside other teaching skills I have acquired such as deliberation.
Course Description:
Florida is second only to Alaska when it comes to miles of coastline. This does not account for the springs, rivers, lakes, canals, and other water bodies that are found throughout the interior of this water-filled state. These waters are full of real and fictional creatures that both scare and enchant us: gators, sharks, pythons, flesh-eating bacteria, and also mermaids, creatures of the deep, and skunk apes. These waters are also the main places of tales and legends—movies sets and youthful springs that promise to keep one young forever. These water-scapes are where life plays out, history unfolds, and culture is made. Drawing from such ideas, this class will explore the natural world from a humanities-based perspectives, paying close attention to the intersecting fields of environmental and religious studies. We will cover concepts of the sacred, movement, ritual, within the context of social and environmental movements. Collectively our class will re-think how we understand human-nature relationships within the lens of the environmental humanities.
