Confronting a Political Economy in Crisis: Examining Causes, Creating Change

Young people, both in the US and elsewhere, are increasingly concerned about how climate change, toxic politics, and the fracturing of stable work arrangements will bear on their life prospects. This course speaks to all three concerns from a political economy perspective. To this end, we will journey to sites of extreme dislocation to examine the toll that current economic arrangements can take on the lives of workers on the lowest rungs of global value chains, the damage they can inflict on our planet, and the ways in which they can disfigure politics and undermine democracy. We will engage with social scientists, journalists, activists, and filmmakers in an effort to explore what, if anything, can be done to tame or retool the political-economic conditions that have produced so many of the crises we face today.

See sample syllabus here.