Sustainability and German Studies: From Ecocriticism to Community Engagement

Education for Sustainable Development in Foreign Language Learning

“…The discussion around sustainability in the curriculum is complex and multifaceted, encompassing environmental protection, economic viability, and social equity. In our educational context, most important are emancipatory models that equip learners with the ability for collective action (Kost et al, 2020). Wals and Jickling (2002) caution against using the term "education for sustainability" because of its prescriptiveness, intellectual determinism, and potential to hinder emerging discourses, especially at the local level (p. 222).…”

Special Section Introduction

“…At the 2019 German Studies Association (GSA) conference, Dan Nolan and Seth Peabody organized a seminar on “Sustainability and German Studies: From Ecocriticism to Community Engagement.” With Kiley Kost as a new co‐organizer, and with significant support from Charlotte Melin, the seminar was followed by a symposium at the University of Minnesota. We first learned of some of the projects described in this special section at these events, both of which are detailed in our seminar report published in German Studies Review (Kost et al, 2020). Other initiatives are not represented here but have influenced our own thinking, such as the FuturGenerator exchange program designed by Helena Juenger and Stefan Soldovieri at the University of Toronto, a curriculum developed around the UN Sustainable Development Goals that Britta Kallin implemented at Georgia Tech, and a course at Lewis & Clark College, in which Katja Altpeter led students into parklands around campus in order to experiment with multispecies thinking within the context of a German environmental course.…”