Critical and Contemplative Pedagogies for Eco-Justice

With Zack Walsh and Brooke D. Lavelle

“What if our efforts to create a more just and caring world weren’t separated from our efforts to adapt to near-term social collapse?”

What we face is a turning point between two futures: The Great Transition and the Great Unraveling. The Great Transition describes a future in which society is comprehensively reorganized to sustain itself in dynamic equilibrium with the Earth’s systems, while the Great Unraveling describes the possibility of civilizational collapse. This seminar is designed to help us develop the capacity to prepare for both possible futures.

This 4-hour seminar was developed as an outcome of a consultation process between the Courage of Care Coalition and the A Mindset for the Anthropocene (AMA) project at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies. It is organized around five modules. Each module includes a short teaching, a guided practice and reflection to support learning and integration.

In module #1, we will explore how modern concepts of ‘nature’ are based on a fundamentally flawed sense of separation and dualism and we will learn about the systems view of life which views ecology as a web of inter-relationships. In module #2, we will develop an intersectional analyses of sustainability issues that includes social and ecological justice lenses and which considers sustainability from multiple perspectives and social sectors. In module #3, we will learn about habituated and automatic personal and social patterns driving unsustainability and practice tools to transform unsustainable into sustainable patterns. In module #4, we will imagine many possible futures and envision futures from the standpoint of the cultural heritage, values, systems etc… that one aspires to express. And in module #5, we will learn about current movements and just strategies that support the movement to sustainability.

Facilitators: Zack Walsh is a Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany. He co-leads the A Mindset for the Anthropocene (AMA) project which is a transdisciplinary research project and emerging network of change agents integrating personal and socio-ecological transformations to sustainability. Brooke D. Lavelle, Ph.D. is the Co-Founder and President of the Courage of Care Coalition. She was recently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany. While there, she collaborated with Zack Walsh and the AMA team to co-develop curricula and pedagogy to support sustainable systemic transformation.

Date: November 14, Thursday, 5-9pm
Cost: Pay-what-you-can, up to $90
Place: The Bourse, 111 S. Independence Mall East, Suite 500, Philadelphia. Map.
Readings: Zack Walsh and Brooke Lavelle, Responding with Love to a Civilization in Crisis. Additional resources: