The goal of the seminar is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the interactions and dependencies of social, ecological and economic systems.
We will discuss, amongst others: planetary boundaries, work, human needs, provisioning systems, energy and resource consumption, capitalism, decoupling etc.

More info on the sessions will be announced before the first session.

After taking this seminar, the students are able to:

• Understand socio-ecological systems as embedded systems and their respective institutional context.
• Critically analyse and act to address challenges on the intersection between social, ecological and economic systems. 
• Challenges include inequality, environmental pollution and exploitation, growth dependency, and overwork. 
• Understanding the entrenchment of the economy with fossil fuels. 
• Perceive necessities, and conceive options for change towards social prosperity and environmental sustainability. 

The seminar helps the students to:

• Analyse and critically reflect (‘critical thinking’) on the framing of social and ecological challenges and policies. 
• Select and apply theoretical concepts in the context of ecological economics. 
• Critically reflect on current debates taking place in influential media. 
• Engage in open discussion, conceive their own opinion based on state-of-the-art academic research and give substantial-constructive feedback
   

• Please make sure you arrive on time. 
• You may miss one of the six sessions. 
• For exceptional reasons it is possible to miss another session, in that case please contact the lecturer. 

• Inputs by teachers
• Discussions and critical reflection of academic, news and magazine articles in leading international and social reviews and media.  
• Variety of group exercises including beehive discussions, collective reading exercise, panel discussions, poster presentations and role games.
• Use of videos, film clips, lecture casts and podcasts

Reading Task (30%)

Read actively the current readings of the week. Submit three discussion questions to one of the texts and an answer to one of the three questions with about 300 words.

Submission latest at midnight on the evening preceeding the respective session.

Grading criteria: relevance of the questions in the light of the text and quality of the answer.

Experts on topic/Presentation (30%)

Presentation of academic texts in a group of four students. Maximum 20 minutes. The presentation should cover the key content and conclusions from the text. Each student should be active in the class presentation.

You should additionally include topic-relevant content from the media/"real world" - and present how your texts are connected.

Submit the slides to the instructors as email latest on the evening preceding the respective session.

At the end of the presentation you should lead a small discussion - prepare some questions for your colleagues.

Grading criteria: Structure & processing: well organised (8%). Accuracy, understanding and coverage: demonstrates understanding of the text (8%). Clarity: clarity of expression (4%).

Participation (20%)

Grading criteria: Active participation in discussions and other in class exercises ; Enhancement of open and inclusive discussion atmosphere ; Meaningful use of digital tools.

The participation grade will be composed of contributions to the discussion after the presentation and contributions to the Forum. 

Discussion Group (20%)

Comment on other groups presentation. 

Final grade

Very good > 90%
Good > 80%
Satisfactory > 70%
Sufficient >= 60%
Insufficient < 60%

The waiting list is not managed by the lecturers thus please do not contact them concerning registration issues.

steven.knauss@wu.ac.at

Thomas.Neier@wu.ac.at