Environmental Studies

From an ecocritical approach, this course explores the ways in which literature and culture represent, and interact with, the natural world, ecological consciousness, and social transformation. It examines how these issues and concerns are reflected in literary texts. This course also discusses a variety of critical approaches and literary responses to the period commonly referred to as the Anthropocence/Capitalocene, considering how literature can become a tool to promote environmental sustainability, multispecies dialogues, and social justice.

This course analyzes how whales and the practice of whaling is portrayed across a variety of film and print sources by Japanese and foreign directors and authors.  In Japan, whale meat is still available in restaurants and supermarkets, and while national whale consumption is falling, the majority of the Japanese public supports the country's whaling industry. In contrast, the idea of hunting whales or consuming them is anathema to much of the western world, where whales have in recent decades become a symbol of the environmental movement. The techniques and ideas utilized in the course aims to help students form educated opinions about whaling issues, and serve as for examining other controversial issues in the future.

This course critically explores principal drivers behind the erosion of natural capital and resilience of ecosystems in light of them. Students take a solutions-based approach for how best to deal with habitat transformation, biodiversity loss, climate change, overexploitation of natural resources and contamination. Solutions incorporate a biological understanding of local and global impacts, drawing from the physical and life sciences, and extend it to actual and potential political, economic, and socio-cultural instruments appropriate and effective to address threats and changes to global biodiversity and ecosystem health.

This course is an introduction to research in environmental sociology with an emphasis on the social processes, dynamics and institutions that are influential in contemporary environmental crises. It looks at the social dimensions of our natural world and considers how our social life shapes our ecological life (and vice versa!). It will focus particularly on how environmental problems are created by social drivers and experienced unequally. Topics include production and consumption and its environmental effects, inequality and environmental risk, and social movements for environmental justice. 

This course introduces the well-known natural disasters that occur in Japan: earthquakes, hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes, and floods. The course analyzes how they occur and how governments, organizations and individuals are working together to minimize the harmful impacts on society. 　 

This course examines the structure and function of forest ecosystems. Topics include forests as complex adaptive systems; forests of the world; history of forests and forestry; disturbance ecology; ecological succession; soils; biogeochemical cycling; energetics; population, community, ecosystems and landscape ecology; biological diversity; stability; complexity; resilience; and sustainable forest management as climate changes.

This course introduces core concepts about how the formation of ocean basins and their influence on climate govern the development of coasts and continental margins. These concepts provide a framework for understanding the geographic variation of coasts, continental shelves and sediment accumulations in the deep ocean. Ocean-basin evolution is explained in terms of movements within the Earth's interior and how these movements determine the geometry of ocean basins, and their alpine counterparts, which interact with the global circulation of the ocean and atmosphere. This interaction plays a key role in marine sedimentation and controls the environmental conditions responsible for the development of coral reefs and other ecosystems. The course systematically outlines how these factors have played out to produce, by gradual change, the coasts we see today, as well as the less familiar deposits hidden beneath the sea and coastal lands. It outlines how knowledge of responses to climate change in the past allow us to predict environmental responses to accelerated climate change occurring now and in the future due to the industrial greenhouse effect, but places these responses into perspective against the geological record. 

This course examines ecological theory and methods to contemporary issues in society. It looks at how to apply ecological methods and theory to deepen our understanding of pressing societal issues and identify management and policy solutions that may be valuable to society.
 

This course covers the interactions between geology and human activities and gives an overview of environmental problems and challenges in geosciences. It deals with water- and soil-resources, contaminated sediments, carbon capture and storage (CCS), the use of micropaleontology in environmental studies to establish reference conditions, impacts of mining activities, climate change from a perspective of natural variation, sustainable use of natural resources, and waste- and pollution control.

Students complete an internship with a local organization or company. Each placement includes oversight and regular check-ins with an internship supervisor from the company or organization. The Internship Methodology Seminar accompanies the internship placement and offers a platform for reflection, enhancement of skills, and development of cultural competence. It focuses on practical skill application, cultural understanding, and adaptability within professional environments to provide a bridge between academic learning and real-world experience.