Faculty Details

Honors Faculty/Staff Details

Karen Litfin (Political Science)


Litfin, Karen (Political Science)

Karen Litfin (Political Science)
Office: 33 Gowen, Box 353530
Phone: (206) 685-3694
Email: litfin@uw.edu
Website: https://www.polisci.washington.edu/people/karen-litfin

Karen Litfin, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of political science at the University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. from UCLA in 1992. Karen’s first two books were Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation (Columbia University Press, 1994) and The Greening of Sovereignty in World Politics (MIT Press, 1998). She has also written on the politics of earth remote sensing; the political implications of Gaia Theory; the relationship between climate science and politics; the ecological politics of sacrifice; the global ecovillage movement; and contemplative pedagogical practices. For links to some of these publications, please click on “Research” tab.

Karen’s latest book, Ecovillages: Lessons for Sustainable Community, traces her yearlong journey to ecovillages around the world in language that is at once intellectually and emotionally engaging. The book explores these micro-laboratories of deep sustainability through four broad windows—ecology, economics, community, and consciousness—or E2C2, and gleans their lessons for a viable human future at every scale, from the neighborhoods to cities to countries to global governance. Click here for her video.

In her teaching, Karen takes an innovative “person/planet politics” approach rooted in two questions: What does it mean to come of age at the dawn of the Anthropocene, as we learn that prevailing institutions, practices and values are unraveling the tapestry of life? And how does one serve as a mentor under these conditions? Karen is currently working on a book based upon her twenty years of experience with contemplative pedagogical practices in environmental and global education.

Instructor's Honors Course History

Listing
Course Title
Yr
Qtr
SLN
Details
HONORS 392 A Political Ecology of Death in the Anthropocene 2023 4 23739 View »
HONORS 392 A Political Ecology of Death in the Anthropocene 2022 4 23452 View »
HONORS 392 A Political Ecology of Death in the Anthropocene 2021 4 16406 View »
HONORS 392 B Political Ecology of Death in the Anthropocene 2019 4 23307 View »
HONORS 392 A Planetary Politics: Human Beingness in the Anthropocene 2017 4 16067 View »
Honors 392 A Person/Planet Politics: Being Human on a New Earth 2015 4 15558 View »
ENVR 203 AD Responding to Global Climate Change 2005 2 3759 View »

 

 

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