Week 1— Introductions. Special read: William Cronon, “A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative.” Text: “Introduction.” Image: John Gast, “American Progress,” 1872/73.
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Week 2— First Nations & Eco-cultural Confrontations. Text: 1-“The American Environment & Native-European Encounters, 1000-1875”. Special reads: Jack Forbes, “Indigenous Americans: Spirituality and Ecos,” in Daedalus, Fall, 2001. Recommended: Honor the Earth on Manoomin (wild rice) as sacred.
Week 3-— Euro-American Foundational Eco-cultural Values. Text: 2-“The New England Wilderness Transformed, 1600-1850” & 3 recommended but will be summarized. Special reads: John Locke, “Of Property” in his Second Treatise on Civil Government, 1690 & Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” in Science,1967
Week 4— Telling Images and New Frontiers. Text: 4 “Nature and the Market Economy, 1750-1850.” Special reads: Angela Miller, “The Fate of Wilderness in American Landscape Art,” to page 101 in A Keener Perception: Ecocritical Studies in American Art History; Images: John Gast, “American Progress,” 1872; Jasper Francis Cropsey, “Starrucca Viaduct, Pennsylvania,” 1865. Text: 5-“Western Frontiers: The Settlement of the Pacific Coast and the Great Plains, 1820-1930”
Week 5— Conservation’s Importance & Its Troubling Structural Racism. Text: 7-“Conservation and Preservation, 1785-1950.” & 8-“Indian Land Policy, 1880-1900.” Special reads: Angela Miller, “The Fate of Wilderness in American Landscape Art,” page 101 – 106; Image: Thomas Moran, “Grand Canyon of the Yellow Stone,” 1872.
Week 6—Environmentalism’s Awakening in the Urban Contexts & Spreading to Suburbia. Text: 6-“Urban Environments, 1850-1960.” Special reads: Rachel Carson, “The Obligation to Endure” & “The Human Price” from Silent Spring.
Week 7— Ecology & Environmental Consciousness Giving Rise to Environmentalism. Text: 9-“The Rise of Ecology, 1890-1990” & 10– “Environmentalism and Globalization, 1960-2005” to p. 202. Special reads: Aldo Leopold,“The Land Ethic.”
Week 8—Today’s Concerns in the Wake of Modern Environmentalism. Text: 10– “Environmentalism and Globalization, 1960-2005” 202-210 Special Read: Robert D. Bullard, “Confronting Environmental Racism in the Twenty-First Century,” in The Colors of Nature.