Colgate University

First-Year Course Offerings — Fall 2023

GEOG 107   Is the Planet Doomed?
Credits1
RestrictionsNo 2025 2024 Instr perm req during Drop/Add
Pre-Requisites
Co-Requisites
Core Area
Area of InquirySocial Relations,Inst.& Agents
Liberal Arts PracticesConfront Collective Challenges The Process of Writing
FormerlyGEOG 207

"End of the world" scenarios have been linked to global pandemics, super-volcanoes, artificial intelligence, and melting permafrost. "Is the Planet Doomed" uses these and other examples to study contemporary catastrophism. The course explores arguments that suggest the world may have reached "peak humanity." Potential mass extinction events arise from the convergence of biological, climatic, economic, technological factors on one hand, and war on the other. The course analyzes these factors using the integrative modes of analysis commonly used in the discipline of geography. And it exposes how geography affects the catastrophic imaginary.