Sources of Environmental Law
The organizing question is how the natural world figures in American public language, the repertoire of arguments and appeals by which we can intelligibly seek to persuade one another of the content and implications of shared commitments. This is a language of politics and law, oriented toward mobilizing and justifying the use of public power in relation to the natural world. Two major concerns further structure this course. The first is to understand the emergence of environmental public language. How have new claims about the value of the natural world acquired intelligibility, even authority, as parts of a public vocabulary? This second aim is to contribute to a typology of the appeals Americans make in arguing about environmental commitments.
Please note that course organization and content may vary substantially from semester to semester and descriptions are not necessarily professor specific. Please contact the instructor directly if you have particular course-related questions.
Sections/Instructors
Jedediah Purdy
Sources of Environmental Law 503.01
Fall 2009
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