Social Theories for the Anthropocene

This unique textbook introduces undergraduate students to key social theories from classical, multicultural, global, and indigenous perspectives, while also inviting them to understand social theories as stories that create our culturally specific social realities.

The readings in this collection emphasize the ways our culturally perceived social-environmental divide has historically been constructed to the detriment of both society and the environment. Social Theories for the Anthropocene offers students the theoretical tools necessary to re-imagine and re-dream. First, to re-imagine what it means to be ‘human’ as we culturally define it. Second, to rethink how to apply such new possibilities to the transformation of Western culture from its current self-destructive trajectory to something more equitable and more sustainable.

Placing readings from classical social theory in dialogue with writings from a diverse range of modern thinkers, this timely reader will be indispensable for undergraduate students and instructors undertaking courses on social theory, the environment, climate change, and ecology.

Author Biography

Phoebe Godfrey is Professor in Residence of Sociology at the University of Connecticut, USA. Her research interests include ecology, sustainability, climate change, food, social justice, and social theory. A scholar-activist, her research and teaching seek to put her personal commitments to equality, justice, and sustainability into practice. She is the author of Understanding Just Sustainabilities from Within: A Case Study of a Shared-Use Commercial Kitchen in Connecticut (Routledge, 2021) and co-editor of Systemic Crises of Global Climate Change: Intersections of Race, Class and Gender (Routledge, 2016) and Emergent Possibilities for Global Sustainability: Intersections of Race, Class and Gender (Routledge, 2016). She is the co-founder of the CLiCK (Commercially Licensed Co-operative Kitchen) in Windham, Connecticut.

Ordoitz Galilea is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Susquehanna University, USA, where he teaches foundations and theory courses in sociology, as well as criminology, human rights, and environmental sociology. His research primarily focuses on community culture and how collective meanings are created, spread, contested, and impact upon individual behaviors. Currently, he is researching how community identity and values are presented through festivals and public celebrations, such as the annual running of the bulls in his native Pamplona, Spain.