Navigating Complexities and Paradoxes of Global Challenges

This online, interdisciplinary course will address the ethical and practical complexities and paradoxes of decolonizing approaches to global challenges. It does so by addressing four interrelated denials that enable the reproduction of an enduring colonial system: denial of colonial violence that underwrites the system; denial of ecological unsustainability; denial of interdependence; and denial of the magnitude of the many “wicked problems” that we face. Generally, if addressed at all, these denials are addressed one at a time, whereas our course brings them together, enabled by the interdisciplinary format. The course also offers students an alternative to common approaches to problem-solving premised on seeking immediate solutions. Instead, it emphasizes the development of students’ intellectual, affective, and relational capacities for navigating uncertainty, complexity, and plurality in an interrelated and unequal world. It seeks to prepare students to address real-world problems in socially and ecologically accountable ways, without sacrificing nuance or minimizing complicity.