Changing Places in Changing Environments 360° Info Session

Join faculty from the Changing Places in Changing Environments 360° scheduled for spring 2022 to learn about this cluster, featuring courses in biology and Russian, with an environmental studies lens!

The UNHCR estimates that “extreme weather events, such as abnormally heavy rainfall, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones are already causing an average of more than 20 million people to leave their homes and move to other areas in their countries each year.” Our era of immense environmental upheaval is striking in its urgency and scale, but far from unprecedented. This cluster focuses on the notion of ecological displacement through humanistic and scientific lenses. We examine ecological displacement, both real and imagined, through the literature and lived experiences of Russian-speaking (i.e., Russophone) people, and consider how other organisms have faced ecological displacement historically and how our species must act on sustainability initiatives as we ourselves face becoming ecological exiles due to climatic change. A focal point of this 360° cluster will be five days of travel to western Pennsylvania (Altoona and Pittsburgh) and New York City to gain special insight into the concept of ecological displacement.