Research Series: Teaching Climate Change: Syllabus as Argument

The Sociology and Anthropology Department will be hosting its first research series talk of this semester. For this event, Dr. Mike Dougherty, professor of sociology at Illinois State University, will be giving a research talk titled, “Teaching Climate Change: Syllabus as Argument.”

Professors in the social sciences tend to organize our syllabi as surveys, as overviews of a particular field, subfield or genre. However, in this post-truth era, it is no longer enough to organize one’s syllabus in this way. One must respond to the concerted attack on the liberal arts with affirmative argumentation. To this end, I assemble courses under the logic of what I call “syllabus as argument.” The first quarter of the course introduces the conceptual material, and the remainder of the semester is spent on the empirical substantiation of the argument itself. Teaching the sociology of climate change lends itself to this approach. In this presentation I draw from my experiences teaching climate change to exemplify the timeliness of syllabus as argument.

This lecture is open to the public. This lecture will also be accessible via Zoom ID: 981 6185 6305. An ISU account is not necessary.