
Contact Information
Biography
Karen Litfin, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita of political science at the University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. from UCLA in 1992. Karen’s first two books were Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation (Columbia University Press, 1994) and The Greening of Sovereignty in World Politics (MIT Press, 1998). She has also written on the politics of earth remote sensing; the political implications of Gaia Theory; the relationship between climate science and politics; the ecological politics of sacrifice; the global ecovillage movement; and contemplative pedagogical practices. For links to some of these publications, please click on “Research” tab.
Karen’s latest book, Ecovillages: Lessons for Sustainable Community, traces her yearlong journey to ecovillages around the world in language that is at once intellectually and emotionally engaging. The book explores these micro-laboratories of deep sustainability through four broad windows—ecology, economics, community, and consciousness—or E2C2, and gleans their lessons for a viable human future at every scale, from the neighborhoods to cities to countries to global governance. Click here for her video.
In her teaching, Karen takes an innovative “person/planet politics” approach rooted in two questions: What does it mean to come of age at the dawn of the Anthropocene, as we learn that prevailing institutions, practices and values are unraveling the tapestry of life? And how does one serve as a mentor under these conditions? Karen is currently working on a book based upon her twenty years of experience with contemplative pedagogical practices in environmental and global education.
Research
Selected Research
- Karen Litfin. "The Contemplative Pause: Insights for Teaching Politics in Turbulent Times." Journal of Political Science Education, 2018, DOI: 10.1080/15512169.2018.1512869. Download PDF
- Karen T. Litfin. "Person/Planet Politics: Contemplative Pedagogies for a New Earth." in New Earth Politics: Essays from the Anthropocene, 2016. Download PDF
- Karen T. Litfin. "Ecovillages and the Transition to Integral Community." In Integral Ecologies: Nature, Culture, and Knowledge in the Planetary Era, edited by Sean Kelly, Sam Mickey and Adam Robbert. SUNY Press, 2013.
- Karen T. Litfin. 2013. "Localism." in Critical Environmental Politics, Edited by Carl Death, Routledge. Download PDF
- Karen T. Litfin. Ecovillages: Lessons for Sustainable Community. Polity Press, 2013. Download PDF
- Karen T. Litfin. "Thinking Like a Planet: Integrating the World Food System into the Earth System," International Handbook of Environmental Politics 2nd edition, edited by Peter Dauvergne, Edward Elgar, 2012. Download PDF
- Karen T. Litfin. "A Whole New Way of Life: Ecovillages and the Revitalization of Deep Community," In Localization: A Transition Reader Adapting to a World with Less Material, More Time, edited by Ray De Young and Thomas Princen, MIT Press, 2011. Download PDF
- Karen T. Litfin. "The Sacred and the Profane in the Ecological Politics of Sacrifice," In The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice, edited by Michael Maniates and John Meyer, MIT Press, 2010. Download PDF
- Karen T. Litfin. "Reinventing the Future: The Global Ecovillage Movement as a Holistic KnowledgeCommunity," In Environmental Governance: Knowledge and Power in a Local-Global World, edited by Gabriela Kütting and Ronnie Lipschutz, Routledge, 2009. Download PDF
- Karen T. Litfin. "Principles of Gaian Governance: A RoughSketch," In Gaia in Turmoil: Climate Change, Biodepletion, and Earth Ethics in an Age of Crisis, edited by Eileen Crist and Bruce Rinker, MIT Press, 2009. Download PDF