ANTH 561F/SEFS 550F
Resilience in Socio-Ecological Systems

MW 1:30-3:20, Denny 401

Course Home
Course Requirements
Class Project
E-mail the class
Discussion Board

READINGS
1. Key Concepts
2. Key Concepts Cont.
3. Sustainability
4. China Example
5. Commons
6. Anthropology
7. Management
8. Critiques
9. Resonances


RESOURCES
The Resilience Alliance
Ecology and Society

Class Schedule: Week 9, Metatheoretical Resonances

For our last real seminar session, we will move up a level of abstractness and consider whether resilience theory, as a particular kind of systems theory, has resonances in two other theories that have been prominent in intellectual discourse in natural science and social science: Evolution by Punctuated Equilibrium in Evolutionary Biology, and the dialectal progress of history in Marxist social science.

Wednesday, May 29: First evolutionary biology: Read the two articles below, and by 10:00 a.m. please post a diagram of how you think the adaptive cycle and evolution by punctuated equilibria are formally similar or different. In class, we will project your diagrams and talk about them. Then Marxist dialectics: For your last discussion-board assignment, post a reflection on the resonances or similarities between the models of resilience ecology, punctuated equilibrium, and Marxist historical dialectics. Where are the similarities and differences, and is this general sort of model (alternating stability and rapid change) useful in understanding the real world?