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What is the relationship between the society and the environment in Southeastern Europe? How can environments be political? Where is the boundary between the human and the non-human – such as animals and plants? Is there such a thing as the domestic and the wild? Where does our waste go? And how do people live with toxicity and environmental degradation? Ecological Anthropologies in Southeastern Europe explores the answers to these questions and more. The course is designed around key questions and challenges in an emerging research field.
The purpose is not to provide a survey of the history of the field. Rather, the aim is to introduce students to a set of questions and analytic tools and invite them to move towards applying them to real-world cases. As general preparation, students have done the readings of the week and are ready to discuss them in class. Poslední úprava: Thiemann André, Dr. phil. (06.02.2026)
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At the end of the course, students will be able to identify contributions, ideas, and concepts in political ecologies in Southeastern Europe. They can use analytic tools in ecological anthropology to pursue independent inquiry into ecological issues and explain different scientific perspectives on nature, ecology, and the environment. They will be able to engage with regional environmental politics in informed and inquisitive ways. Poslední úprava: Thiemann André, Dr. phil. (06.02.2026)
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Course format This course is organized as a seminar. Having read the assigned readings and coming prepared to class are key. I expect your full, active, and professional participation in class. This means showing up on time (persistently showing up late will negatively affect your participation grade). Respectfully engaging with the course instructor, lecturers, and your peers. Being responsible for the assigned reading and materials: if you miss a class, it is your responsibility to do the reading and get class notes from one of your peers. Technology Laptops and tablets are allowed for the purposes of viewing course materials and for taking notes during discussion sections. I strongly prefer that you write your notes by hand. Research shows that writing notes by hand improves your understanding of the material and helps you remember it better, since writing it down involves deeper cognitive processing of the material than typing it. I recognize that not all students can or wish to use handwritten notes. If you do use laptops, do turn off your wi-fi during class time to resist the temptation of email, social media, etc. Cellphones should be silenced and should not be used during class. Poslední úprava: Thiemann André, Dr. phil. (06.02.2026)
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Assignments and Grades The following is a rough overview of how I will evaluate your performance in class. More in-depth descriptions, rubrics, and prompts can be provided with each assignment. - Class preparation, active listening and participation in Q&A with lecturers: 15 % - 1 Essay preparation (obligatory reading): 15 % - 2 Presentations (facultative readings): 30 % - Final examination (hand-written test, followed by oral examination): 40 % Course readings and syllabus I believe that a course and its instructor should be adaptable. This means that readings and course activities may change to suite course developments, forward fruitful discussions, or to address student interests. For this reason, the readings in this syllabus should be regarded as provisional. For any given week, the readings will be available on Canvas. While readings may, from time-to-time change, the course policies and procedures listed in this syllabus will not. It is your responsibility to know them. General introductory books to Environmental Studies in SEE and in Anthropology For an overview of the field, consult the following monographs and edited volumes: Daheur, Jawad, and Iva Lučić, eds. 2026. Habsburg Natures: Imperial Governance and Environment in Central Europe, 1850-1918. Environment in History : International Perspectives. Berghahn. Dorondel, Stefan, and Luminita Gatejel. 2025. Flowing Progress Transforming the Danube Through Infrastructure. Central European Studies. Purdue University Press. Bollig, Michael, and Franz Krause. 2023. Environmental Anthropology: Current Issues and Fields of Engagement. UTB. Dorondel, Stefan, and Stelu Serban, eds. 2022. A New Ecological Order: Development and the Transformation of Nature in Eastern Europe. University of Pittsburgh Press. Krasznai Kovacs, Eszter. 2021. Politics and the Environment in Eastern Europe. Open Book Publishers. Reading Policy All of the course readings for this class can be found on Canvas. In some classes, we will spend significant time discussing particular readings. In others, we will treat them as background. In all cases, if there is something you don’t understand in the material, it is your responsibility to make sure that you gain an understanding of it by asking questions and raising issues. You are expected to arrive at class ready to discuss any and all of the required course readings. 1 Essays (400 words) 20% The essays have to be prepared in the following format: Concisely summarise the main arguments of the reading. Analyse the significance of given texts to ecological anthropology and society at large. Compare and contrast the readings with other texts on the same topic that you are familiar with. Draw parallels from your own experience or from a society that you are familiar with regarding the topic of the presentation. Raise questions related to the topic that can be discussed in class. Policy on Plagiarism I strongly believe that learning is a collaborative venture. I encourage you to study with your peers, meet to discuss readings with them, and, on assignments, to work together with them. That said, the work that you produce for this course must be your own. There are no exceptions to this rule and no legitimate excuses for violating it. If you fail to acknowledge others’ work or that you are caught overtly plagiarizing from online or written sources, you will receive zero percentage points on the assignment and may be subject to disciplinary procedures. Office Hours Please, feel free to contact me via email. I prefer that you contact me directly rather than through Canvas. Please also keep in mind that I am as busy as you. Make sure you consult the course syllabus, other handouts, your peers and the course Canvas site before sending an e-mail. Note that e-mail should not be seen as an alternative to meeting with me during office hours. Nor should e-mail be used as a mechanism to receive private tutorials or to explain material that was covered in classes you missed (those are your responsibility to obtain from your peers). I will endeavor to respond within 24 hours, though I do not respond to email on the weekends or after 5pm, so plan ahead. Contacting me the night before an assignment is due is, by definition, too late. Attendance Attendance at all course and section meetings is required. You are permitted two unexplained course absences per semester. After that, each absence will reduce your overall participation grade by 1/3 of a grade. If you have a legitimate reason to miss class, it is your responsibility to let me know by email before class. Statement on Learning Success Your success in this class is important to me. We will all need accommodations because we all learn differently. If there are aspects of this course that prevent you from learning or exclude you, please let me know as soon as possible. We will develop strategies to meet both your needs and the requirements of the course. I also encourage you to reach out to the student resources available through Charles University. Student Rights & Responsibilities You have a right to a learning environment that supports mental and physical wellness. You have a right to respect. You have a right to be assessed and graded fairly. You have a right to freedom of opinion and expression. You have a right to privacy and confidentiality. You have a right to meaningful and equal participation, to self-organize groups to improve your learning environment. You have a right to learn in an environment that is welcoming to all people. No student shall be isolated, excluded or diminished in any way. With these rights come responsibilities: You are responsible for taking care of yourself, managing your time, and communicating with the teacher, guest lecturers and with others if things start to feel out of control or overwhelming. You are responsible for acting in a way that is worthy of respect and always respectful of others. Your experience with this course is directly related to the quality of the energy that you bring to it, and your energy shapes the quality of your peers’ experiences. You are responsible for creating an inclusive environment and for speaking up when someone is excluded. You are responsible for holding yourself accountable to these standards, holding each other to these standards, and holding the teacher accountable as well. Personal Pronoun Preference Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing with differences of race, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender, gender variance, and nationalities. Class rosters are provided to the instructor with the student’s legal name. I will gladly honor your request to address you by a name different than what appears on the roster, and by the gender pronouns you use. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester so that I may make appropriate changes to my records. Note on academic dishonesty Plagiarism is a severe crime. In my experience, it mostly comes from students’ insecurity with academic writing that they are relatively new to. Rather than copying someone else’s text and helping AI rephrase it (which makes it much less easily detectable than it was a couple of years ago), I suggest to write your own thoughts in simple words and it will get easier over time. Note on using AI tools If you are using AI tools, highlight the part of the text where you have used AI and add a footnote explaining which AI tool and which query you used. You are still required to read, understand, critique and interpret ethnographic texts on your own and form coherent arguments based on your readings. At the same time, I see no issues asking AI tools to help you rephrase your thought. You should still have a go at trying to rephrase the ideas in the text we read in your own words. It can be challenging, especially if you are not a native speaker, but for the next few years, it is still considered a useful skill to have. Free grammar tools such as Grammarly are recommended for use to improve the legibility of your work. Poslední úprava: Thiemann André, Dr. phil. (06.02.2026)
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Poslední úprava: Thiemann André, Dr. phil. (06.02.2026)
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