Admission requirements
Required course(s):
The course is aimed at higher-year students; you should ideally have completed a 200-level course in your Major.
Recommended course(s):
- Social Theory in Every Day Life
Description
As Bryan Thill suggests “though we try to imagine otherwise, waste is every object, plus time” (2015 p. 8). That means everything (e v e r y t h i n g) that has been, and is ever been produced, will be, at some point in time, wasted. What does this reveal about the societies in which we live? What does this say about the eco-social relations we establish?
The Languages of Waste course explores waste as a social form, that is a material, cultural, and scientific phenomenon. Moving beyond the idea of waste as mere “refuse” the course examines its agency, aesthetics and ecological impact, tracing how discarded matter shapes narratives, identities, and planetary relations at local and global levels ─from the ways in which we relate to our body (and the presence of microplastics inside it) to our vulnerability to growing spatial debris.
Students will study waste from various disciplinary perspectives (from ecology to philosophy) to understand how waste is signified environmentally and culturally in terms of its material agency, and its capacity to dissolve binary forms of thinking and acting. These two approaches to waste are crucial to face the ethical and social dimensions of the uneven distributions of harms derived from waste management geopolitics. Ultimately, the course aims at introducing students to the existing languages of waste that move beyond techno-economic approaches to the problem. This is a crucial task to address the mental models and patterns that underpin existing relations to waste in the search for more sustainable manners to inhabit the world, dealing and a caring for what is discarded.
Course Objectives
The main objective of this course is to develop in students an analytical capacity to think about waste critically, in connection to concrete types of waste and their daily practices.
In terms of contents, upon completion of the course students will:
Learn the relevant theoretical perspectives in the expanding interdisciplinary field of discard and waste studies.
Describe and analyze waste as a material and symbolic agent across disciplinary perspectives.
Apply scientific and artistic methods to understand waste’s ecological and cultural dimensions.
Critically assess global waste systems, their ethical and political implications.
In terms of skills, this course will help students:
Develop the capacity to elaborate a solid and sound argumentative position regarding issues related to the course content.
Learn to communicate their position in speaking and writing.
Connect and use abstract concepts and theories to understand concrete situations.
Practice team-work skills to effectively conduct and present a research-based case-study with others.
Communicate insights through interdisciplinary research and creative projects.
Timetable
Timetables for courses offered at Leiden University College in 2025-2026 will be published on this page of the e-Prospectus.
Mode of instruction
This course will be taught as a seminar in person twice a week. As a 300 level course, the course is run as a seminar, highly dependent on students participation. This means your critical engagement with the readings and weekly material is essential part of the course and its developments. The sessions are fundamentally organized based on the student’s discussion of the scholarly work assigned for that session and their applicability to daily examples.
Assessment Method
Five weekly reflections & pitch presentations: 5 x 5% (25%)
Case-study research in groups: 30%
Case-study individual report: 15%
Final assigment: 30%
Reading list
Readings will be available via Brightspace to students enrolled at the beginning of the course.
Registration
Courses offered at Leiden University College (LUC) are usually only open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Leiden University students who participate in one of the university’s Honours tracks or programmes may register for one LUC course, if availability permits. Registration is coordinated by the Education Coordinator, course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact
Dr. Daniela Vicherat Mattar, d.a.vicherat.mattar@luc.leidenuniv.nl
Remarks
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