Chien-Yi Lu, Sarah Chen, Shuo Chen Hong, Chin Mei Tseng, Yie-Ru Chiu, Tammy Turner, Yo Huei Yu, Ishan Lin, Jane Wang

Department of European Languages and Cultures, National Chengchi University

Monday 16:00~18:00

This interdisciplinary general education course is designed in a lecture format and co-taught by multiple instructors. It centers around the concept and practices of degrowth, critically examining dominant assumptions about economic progress, development, and human flourishing.

The terms degrowth, post-growth, de-growth economics, and wellbeing economy all converge on a shared message: perpetual economic growth is ecologically unsustainable, socially destructive, and ethically questionable. It accelerates ecological collapse, exacerbates inequality, and undermines collective wellbeing. As Amitav Ghosh writes in The Great Derangement, “[I]f there is one thing that global warming has made perfectly clear it is that to think about the world only as it is amounts to a formula for collective suicide.”

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the standard metric for economic growth, merely tallies monetary exchanges of goods and services, while remaining blind to the violent exploitation of ecosystems, the structural disenfranchisement of the majority, and the worsening inequality embedded in current capitalist societies. If growth driven by GDP leads us toward destruction, what might a society look like if it prioritized happiness and collective wellbeing instead? What if we could reimagine our systems of land use, housing, food production, care, education, energy, and mobility differently, as guided not by profit, but by solidarity, ecological regeneration, and autonomy from capitalism?

The first half of the course provides a foundational introduction to degrowth, covering topics such as capitalism, neoliberalism, enclosure and the commons, colonialism, planetary boundaries, ecological and cultural diversity, political and economic democracy, and the green growth fallacies including greenwashing and consumerism.

The second half of the course adopts an interactive pedagogical format, beginning with the screening of a 30-minute documentary, Closer to Home: Voices of Hope in a Time of Crisis, followed by thematic and interactive sessions on housing justice, cooperative housing models, food systems, degrowth and personal growth, globalization and mental health, social media anxiety, eco-anxiety, transdisciplinary networks for wellbeing, human-centered economies, Indigenous ecological wisdom, cooperative case studies, ecovillages, community currencies, repair cafés, zero-waste practices, and mutual aid in disaster resilience.

While there are countless ways human societies can organize economic life, we have only one Earth, which is a finite and fragile planetary ecosystem that sustains all life. Today, under capitalism, most people are not only exploited but also enlisted in the collective destruction of nature.

Alternative social and economic visions rooted in justice, care, and sustainability are already being imagined and implemented around the world. This course aims to help students recognize that a different world is possible. Through critical inquiry and creative engagement, students will be encouraged to reclaim their capacities for care, imagination, and action as meaningful contributors to global movements for systemic transformation.

Week 01  09/01

Chien-Yi Lu｜Course Introduction

Week 02  09/08

Sarah Chen｜What “Economic Growth” Doesn’t Tell Us

Week 03  09/15

Shuo Chen Hong｜Degrowth: What Is It, Really?

Week 04  09/22

Chin Mei Tseng｜Zero Waste and the Art of Minimal Impact

Week 05  09/29

Yie-Ru Chiu｜An Economy that Sees People as People

Week 06  10/06

Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday

Week 07  10/13

Tammy Turner｜Where Does Your Food Come From?

Week 08  10/20（Midterm Week）

Shuo Chen Hong｜Is Green Growth Possible? On the Frontlines of Renewable Energy

Week 09  10/27

Yo Huei Yu｜Cooperatives: Rethinking What a Company Can Be

Week 10  11/03

Ishan Lin｜Lao-Zhuang’s Guide to Being Human

Week 11  11/10

Sarah Chen｜Biodiversity: Why Should We Care?

Week 12  11/17

Jane Wang｜Can Degrowth Make Me Happy?

Week 13  11/24

Ishan Lin｜Wonderful as Sky and Earth

Week 14  12/01

Jane Wang｜Feudalism 2.0: AI and New Techno-Politics

Week 15  12/08

Jane Wang｜Degrowth and the Politics of Social Movements

Week 16  12/15（Final Week）

Chien-Yi Lu｜Course Conclusion

Lecture 70%, Discussion 10%, Group Activity 20%

Weekly Instructor-Designed Assessments 80%, Final Reflective Essay 20%

Textbook

•  Hickel, Jason. Less is More : How Degrowth Will Save the World. Random House UK, 2020.

Recommended Reading

• Conway, Erik M., and Naomi Oreskes. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. 

• Davidson, Eric A. You Can’t Eat GNP: Economics as If Ecology Mattered. Perseus, 2001. 

• Jackson, Tim. Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. Earthscan, 2010. 

• Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. 2021. 

• Kumar, Satish, and Fritjof Capra. Elegant Simplicity: The Art of Living Well. New Society Publishers, Limited Consortium Book Sales & Distribution Distributor, 2020. 

• Roszak, Theodore, et al. Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. Sierra Club Books, 1997. 

• Sandel, Michael J. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013.