In some ways, sustainability has become like "world peace": many people claim to want it, but only on their own terms. The result is a world that is far from sustainable or peaceful.

At the same time, despite its modest credentials, the sustainability agenda is increasingly framed by the far right as a risk to - what it believes to be - legitimate/ desirable hierarchies on the basis of nationality, race and/or gender.

It seems a growing number of people is giving up on the idea of a future that has enough for everyone and everything. Instead, societies are withdrawing behind borders, handing over control to authoritarian strongmen and militarizing supply chains to secure their share of toxic extraction.

This course starts from the premise that it is not yet too late to imagine different futures, and that the original ideas of sustainability are worth salvaging and reinvigorating.

In eight weeks we will bring together a wide range of thinkers that try to push the original ideas of sustainability out of the world of impotent, abstract agreement and apolitical truthisms.

Doing so, we will explore questions like: how do sustainability concerns figure within the ecofascist far-right? What does it still mean to talk of sustainability in the face of genocide? What role does sustainability discourse play in the justification of settler colonialism? Can we talk about sustainability and degrowth without talking about reparations?

Coordinator

Misha Velthuis

Timetable

You can find the timetable on Datanose.

Entry requirements

Open to second-year and third-year UvA Bachelor's students and other interested parties, such as contract students or students from other Dutch higher education institutions. Master's students can only participate if there are still spots available.

Registration

UvA Bachelor's students can register from 8 to 15 June 2026 in the GLASS registration rounds. Master’s students can send a short motivation to keuzeonderwijs-iis@uva.nl.

‘Bijvak’ students and contract students can register from 8 June 2026 until two weeks prior to the start of the course, by completing the online registration form.

If you have any trouble while registering, please contact us at keuzeonderwijs-iis@uva.nl.

Please note: as a contract student you can choose to participate either including or excluding assessment. If you choose the latter, you only have access to the seven lectures of the course. If you also wish to attend the seminars, please choose 'including assessment'.

Costs

Prices can be found on the IIS website.

SDGs in education

The IIS strives to reflect current societal issues and challenges in our elective courses, honours modules and degree programmes and attempts to integrate the following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in this course. For more information about these goals, please visit the SDGs website.

SDGs in education

The IIS strives to reflect current societal issues and challenges in our elective courses, honours modules and degree programmes, and attempts to integrate the following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in this course. For more information about these goals, please visit the SDGs website