COURSES

The Cultural Politics of Race and Nature Description	Biopolitics: Nature, Power, Life Description	Environmental Justice: Nature, Identity and Politics Description	Topics in Cultural & Social Theory: Marx & Political Economy Description
History and Politics of the U.S. Southwest Description	Environmental Politics: Nature, Culture & Difference Description	Introduction to Science & Technology Studies Description	Science & Society: The Culture and Politics of the Life Sciences Description

Letter to prospective Graduate students

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

As a teacher, I aim to cultivate intellectual excitement and commitment, to foster critical thinking, reading and writing, and to promote engaged and rigorous analysis of important debates, both historical or contemporary. I take teaching seriously because I believe that combining innovative research with committed teaching is not only possible but also personally and politically vital. Teaching is rewarding to me because it is a means of thoughtfully and critically engaging in the world with others. It is a way of sharing what I have learned from my work and life and scholarly experience while simultaneously encouraging students to draw on their own experiences to remake what I teach, to use it and develop it beyond what I teach.  For this to happen, the right type of learning environment needs to be created, one in which critical, thoughtful dissent is readily welcome. I want my classroom to continue to be a haven for these endangered ways of thinking, a place to slow down, to thoughtfully consider and openly think, speak and write.

My teaching interests fall into four interrelated areas: environmental politics, the cultural politics of difference, Science and Technology Studies, and archival and ethnographic research methodologies. These are broad areas of study and, while I believe in the value and insight that comes from tracing disciplinary lineages, my commitment to these fields has as much to do with the connections between them as the areas of interest themselves. The courses described below, all of which I have developed and/or taught, draw on my background in Anthropology, Geography and American Studies as well as other disciplines such as Ecology, History, Cultural Studies and Political Theory.