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This course conceptualizes religion vis-à-vis ideology, limning the contours of these two categories and drawing out similarities and differences between them. We explore the question of what religious and/or ideological ideas lead into our current climate crisis, in the situation we now call the Anthropocene – and ask whether alternate religious and/or ideological ideas can help to lead us out. Over the span of the course, we will read classical authors from religious studies as well as recent work in political philosophy on ideology by theorists in the Marx-Hegelian critical theory tradition. We will then explore exciting work by degrowth scholars like Kohei Saito. Along the way, some cases will demonstrate the real-world environmental impact of ideological and religious ideas.