All students are also required to take the methods sequence:

• CEGU 23517 Introduction to Critical Spatial Media: Visualizing Urban, Environmental, and Planetary Change
• A methods option course, chosen from a list of approved courses↗

The second methods course is selected from a menu of options in the qualitative/quantitative social sciences, geospatial analysis and geographical information sciences, and environmental humanities. Options include methods courses in data science, digital humanities, qualitative field methods, social science computing, ethnography, statistics, GIS and spatial analysis, and historical analysis. 

Students may choose a methods option course that provides needed training in an area of the BA thesis or capstone project, but it is not required. For questions related to what kinds of methodological training may be helpful for a thesis or capstone project, please reach out to the student affairs administrator or other program staff↗.

CEGU majors are also required to take 5 elective courses chosen from a list of approved courses↗ for more advanced courses in environmental social science and environmental humanities.

For CEGU majors who opt to specialize in a thematic track, 3 of the 5 electives are selected from a smaller menu of courses that offer advanced engagement with key research agendas in this area. All thematic track electives also count as general electives options in the CEGU major.

Once the foundations option course has been completed, additional foundations option courses count towards elective options in the major. 

As part of the CEGU major, students are required to partake in a capstone sequence.

For the BA thesis, students are required to take the following colloquium sequence in addition to completing an extended thesis paper:

• CEGU 29801 BA Colloquium I (Offered Fall)
• CEGU 29802 BA Colloquium II (Offered Winter)

For the capstone option, students take the following:

• A capstone-designated course, chosen from a list of approved courses.↗
• An additional thematic track or general elective.

For more information on the BA thesis and capstone options, please see the BA Thesis/BA Capstone page.

Urbanization is intermeshed with the remaking of human and nonhuman environments, within cities and beyond. The Urban Environmental Studies thematic track of the CEGU major explores these connections and their wide-ranging implications for urban space and for the non-city zones that support urban life. Topics include the politics of environmental planning, design, and architecture; the role of class-based, gendered, and racialized forms of oppression in the production of urban built environments and political ecologies; the changing material and resource flows through which urban spaces are reproduced; the role of states, international organizations, and social movements in the governance of urban environmental restructuring; the emergence and evolution of urban climate politics; and ongoing struggles to create more just, inclusive and sustainable spaces of urbanization.

For students who choose to specialize in a thematic track, the foundations option course as well as three of the five total elective courses must be chosen from a list of courses within that track.

For a list of Urban Environmental Studies foundations option courses, please see the spreadsheet available here.↗

For a list of Urban Environmental Studies electives, please see the spreadsheet available here.↗

The Energy Histories and Geographies thematic track explores the historical roots of climate change and other global environmental problems with special attention to how energy use shapes human societies over time. From prehistory to the present, coursework in this track examines how people have variably harnessed sources of energy from environmental constituents—including plants, animals, wind, water, stones, metals, fossil fuels, and other humans—in tandem with the technological and social changes associated with their use. Topics include energy flow through and across natural and built environments, energy’s role in shaping political structures and social inequalities, the radical expansion and intensification of energy use under capitalism, the uneven globalization of energy-intensive lifestyles, the changing geopolitics of energy, and possible futures beyond fossil-fuel dependence.

For students who choose to specialize in a thematic track, the foundations option course as well as three of the five total elective courses must be chosen from a list of courses within that track.

For a list of Energy Histories and Geographies foundations option courses, please see the spreadsheet available here.↗

For a list of Energy Histories and Geographies electives, please see the spreadsheet available here.↗

The Environmental Humanities represent a multidisciplinary field of research that studies how society, culture, and politics shape and are shaped by human-environment relationships. This track of the CEGU major examines a diverse range of humanistic material and methods, such as storytelling, source criticism, and formal analysis, to think critically about how environments, ecologies, and non-humans become part of social life. The track also explores how humanistic inquiry sheds light on socioenvironmental transformations and crises, and is integral, along with the natural and social sciences, to strategies and struggles to forge more equitable, democratic, vibrant, and hopeful planetary futures.

For students who choose to specialize in a thematic track, the foundations option course as well as three of the five total elective courses must be chosen from a list of courses within that track.

For a list of Environmental Humanities foundations option courses, please see the spreadsheet available here.↗

For a list of Environmental Humanities electives, please see the spreadsheet available here.↗