What comes after denial? Climate, fascism, and democracy
Course content
Environmentalism is oftentimes depicted as a revolutionary ally of the left pushing towards social and environmental justice, while climate change denial is associated with reactionary positions that have halted and distorted environmental politics for decades. But thanks to recent years of extreme weathers and to the successes of climate movements in raising alarm, we are beginning to see the end of denial. Thus, in 2021, renowned climate journalist, David Wallace-Wells, concluded that “the war on climate denial had been won.” But what comes after denial? Does the end of denial necessarily lead to climate justice? Or does the move from denial towards realism about climate change steer new forms of fascisms?
What comes after denial? Climate, fascism, and democracy is a political theory course that engages with the above questions. It takes seriously the emergence of new ecofascist tendencies as complex phenomena to be critically studied, analyzed, and contested. The course is divided into three parts: (1) we explore different conceptualizations of fascism and climate change generally (2) we analyze the tendency from climate change denial towards realism about (anthropogenic) climate change and the forms of fascism that may follow from it (3) we discuss democratic responses to the emerging phenomena.
The course draws on political theories concerning climate change, democracy, and fascism. During the course students will be presented to ecofascist, neo-Malthusian, petromasculinist and collapsologist movements that in some cases convey racist, misogynic, and homophobic ideas. We critically discuss them within materialist, new materialist, and critical theoretical frameworks.
MSc in Political Science
MSc in Social Science
MSc in Security Risk Management
Bachelor in Political Science
Knowledge:
- Describe the studied theoretical approaches
Skills:
- Present and analyze the arguments behind each of the theoretical approaches studied.
- Apply the theories to discussions about climate, fascism, and democracy
Competences:
- Combine and synthesize the ways in which each theoretical approach understands fascism and envisions a democratic response
- Evaluate the validity of the various theoretical arguments
The course will have a seminar format with small lectures, group work and presentations. Requires active participation.
Preliminary reading list:
Anker, Elizabeth. 2022. Ugly Freedoms
Bendell, Jem. 2020. Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy
Bonneuil, Christophe and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. 2016. The Shock of the Anthropocene. The Earth, History, and Us
Braidotti, Rosi. 2019. Affirmative Ethics and Generative Life. Deleuze and Guattari Studies vol. 13(4)
Connolly, William. 2017. Aspirational Fascism. The Struggle for Multifaceted Democracy under Trumpism
Connolly, William. 2017. Facing the Planetary. Entangled Humanism and the Politics of Swarming
Connolly, William. 2019. Climate Machines, Fascist Drives and Truth
Darwish, Maria. Nature, Masculinities, Care, and the Far-Right In: Men, Masculinities, and Earth
Daggett, Cara. 2018. Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol. 47(1)
Griffin, Roger. 2018. Fascism. Key Concepts in Political Theory
Haraway, Donna. 2016. Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chtulucene
Hardin, Garrett. 1974. Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor.
Katz-Rosene, Ryan and Julia Szwarc. 2022. Preparing for Collapse: The Concerning Rise of “Eco-Survivalism”, Capitalism Nature Socialism, vol. 33(1
Klein, Naomi. 2014. Changes Everything. Capitalism Vs. the Climate
Klein, Naomi. 2019. On Fire. The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal
Latour, Bruno. 2017. Down to Earth. Politics in the New Climatic Regime
Lubarda, Balša. 2020. Beyond Ecofascism? Far-Right Ecologism (FRE) as a Framework for Future Inquiries. Environmental Values, vol. 29(6)
Ma, Mike. 2019. Harassment Architecture
Malm, Andreas. 2021. How to Blow up a Pipeline
Malm, Andreas and the Zetkin Collective. 2021. White Skin, Black Fuel. On the Danger of Fossil Fascism
Malm, Andreas. 2021. Corona, Climate and Chronic Emergency
Mbembe, Achille. 2019. Necropolitics,
Moore, Jason. 2017. The Capitalocene, Part I: on the nature and origins of our ecological crisis. The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol.44(3)
Parr, Adrian. 2015. Green Scare. Philosophy Today, vol. 59 (4)
Rife, Tyler. 2020. Scaling the Necropolitical Anthropocene. Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, vol.9 (4)
Shaw, Amanda and Kalpana Wilson. 2020. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the necro-populationism of ‘climate-smart’ agriculture, Gender, Place & Culture, vol.27(3)
Schultz, Susanne. 2021. The Neo-Malthusian Reflex in Climate Politics: Technocratic, Right Wing and Feminist References. Australian Feminist Studies, vol. 36(110)
Wallace-Wells, David. 2021. After Alarmism. The War on climate denial has been won. And that’s not the only good news.
Wainwright, Joel and Geoff Mann. 2013. Climate Leviathan. Antipode, vol.45 (1)
Zetkin, Clara. 1923. Fascism
- ECTS
- 7,5 ECTS
- Type of assessment
-
Portfolio
- Type of assessment details
- Portfolio exam
- Marking scale
- 7-point grading scale
- Censorship form
- No external censorship
Criteria for exam assessment
- Grade 12 is given for an outstanding performance: the student lives up to the course's goal description in an independent and convincing manner with no or few and minor shortcomings
- Grade 7 is given for a good performance: the student is confidently able to live up to the goal description, albeit with several shortcomings
- Grade 02 is given for an adequate performance: the minimum acceptable performance in which the student is only able to live up to the goal description in an insecure and incomplete manner
Single subject courses (day)
- Category
- Hours
- Class Instruction
- 28
- English
- 28
Kursusinformation
- Language
- English
- Course number
- ASTK18415U
- ECTS
- 7,5 ECTS
- Programme level
- Full Degree Master
Bachelor
- Duration
-
1 semester
- Placement
- Spring
- Studyboard
- Department of Political Science, Study Council
Contracting department
- Department of Political Science
Contracting faculty
- Faculty of Social Sciences
Course Coordinator
- Marie Kongsted Møller (3-75737548716e7b36737d366c73)
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