Weekly Schedule and Readings

introductions


Thursday
8/17
Introduction to the course
  
 

Week 1: what is environmental history and how do i use it?


Tuesday
8/22

in class

Presentation and Discussion – Irrational Landscape: The Great Plains and its towns.

before class

  1. Open up Google Earth or Google Maps and just spend ten or twenty minutes looking at the Great Plains. This is a region that extends from the middle sections of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas to the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains. Just note anything you see that strikes you as interesting. What does the place look like? What color is it? How have humans organized the space? Why do you think they did it that way?
  2. Read:  Reading an Urban Landscape
  3. Read: Reading a landscape
Thursday
8/24

IN class

Workshop – Reading Wooster and Wayne County

before class

Walk south down Beall Avenue to Liberty Street downtown, turn west on Liberty and walk to Market Street, turn north, walk to University Street and turn east back to campus. (The whole distance is about two miles and will take about an hour. Wear comfortable shoes.) Consider the the layout of this rectangle with the College at the north and downtown to the south. How is the space arranged? Pay attention to the types of built spaces and where they are in relation to other built spaces.

Check out this old map of Wooster on Etsy

  

Week 2: wilderness and the american mind


Tuesday
8/29

in class

Presentation/Discussion – American Wilderness and Sublime Landscapes

Before Class

Thomas Moran, The Grand Canyon of the Colorado

Research and take a one-paragraph note on the meaning and significance of “sublime landscape” paintings
Thursday
8/31

in class

Workshop – Wilderness as an Academic Enterprise

Before Class

Read and Take Notes on the following articles from the first ever issue of Environmental History

Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness”

Hays,  “The Trouble with Bill Cronon’s Wilderness”

Cohen, “Resistance to Wilderness”

Dunlap, “But What Did You Go Out into the Wilderness to See?”

Cronon, “Response”

  

Week 3: Understanding environmental history part one


Tuesday
9/5

in class

Presentation/Discussion: Understanding Environmental History – A Midterm Study Session

Before Class

Read: Fiege, The Republic of Nature, pages ix-99

Read: Jacobs, “The Great Bophuthatswana Donkey Massacre” (You will be asked to write your essay on one aspect of this article.)

Thursday
9/7

in class

Midterm One.

Before Class

Review Lecture/Discussion/Presentation Notes. Review notes from workshops. Read and review the articles and chapters assigned so far.

  

Week 4: Case Study – the great plains: 1541-1931


Tuesday
9/12

in class

Presentation/Discussion: Settler Colonialism: Race, Space, and Nature on the Great Plains 1541-1876

Before Class

Research and write two-paragraph description of settler colonialism. One paragraph on what it means and a second on how it helps us understand the past.

Read: Fiege, The Republic of Nature, 100-228

Thursday
9/14

in class

Presentation/Discussion: The Agricultural Wonderland

  

Week 5: Case study – Ruin: The Great plains 1931-1941


Tuesday
9/19

in class

Presentation: The Dust Bowl

Before Class

Watch: The Plow that Broke the Plains

Thursday
9/21

in class

Presentation/Workshop: The Art of the Dust Bowl: Film, Photography, Painting, and Music

Alexandre Hogue’s “Drouth Survivors”: The Ten-Minute Research Paper

Before Class

Check out the paintings of Alexandre Houge, the Dust Bowl Ballads of Woody Guthrie, and the photographs of Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothstein. Write one-paragraph notes on each of these subjects.

 
 

Week 6: case study: understanding the dust bowl


Tuesday
9/26

in class

Presentation/Discussion: Dueling Narratives, Opposing Logics: New Dealers and Boosters and the Ropesville Project.

Before Class

Read: Cronon, “A Place for Stories” Annotated Version

Read: “Level of Living on the Ropesville Project”

Thursday
9/28

in class

Workshop: Building the Five-Paragraph Research Paper

Before Class

Review all your notes on New Deal Art.

Sunday10/1Research Paper Due: 5:00 p.m.Send a pdf of your paper directly to my email. NOT A LINK – but the actual attachment. title your document with your last name first and then the words dust bowl paper. Like this – bairddustbowlpaper. NOT dustbowlpaperbaird, or dustbowlpaper or historypaper.

Week 7: Conservation and PReservation and knowledge


Tuesday
10/10

in class

Presentation/Discussion: National Parks, National Forests, and the Rise of Industrial Capitalism

Before Class

Read: Hays, “From Conservation to Environment”

Thursday
10/12

in class

Discussion: Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass Part One

Before Class

Read: Kimmerer,  Braiding Shortgrass ix-117

  

Week 8: The birth of the Environmental Movement 

 

Tuesday

10/17

in class

Presentation: The Birth of the Environmental Movement

Before Class

Read: Rome, “Give Earth a Chance”

  
Thursday
10/19

in class

Discussion: Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass Part Two

Before Class

Read: Kimmerer,  Braiding Shortgrass 121-200

Take one-two sentence notes on what you learned in each chapter


Week 9: Case Study: The 1964 Wilderness Protection Act


Tuesday
10/24

in class

Discussion/Workshop: What to do with the Wilderness Act?

Before Class

Collect ten documents on the 1964 Wilderness Act

Write one paragraph description and summary of the 1964 Wilderness Act

Thursday
10/26

in class

Midterm Two

Before Class

Review: All readings (including the rest of Braiding Sweetgrass), media, lectures, discussion, workshops from Dust Bowl through Wilderness Act.

  

Week 10: Understanding Environmental Racism


Tuesday-Thursday

10/31-11/2

in class

Workshop: Understanding Environmental Racism

Before Class

Read: Ten Examples of Environmental Racism

Read: Fiege, Republic of Nature, 281-402

Read: Environmental Justice in Postwar America, Part One: The Nature of Segregation

Read/Watch: Examining the Effects of Environmental Inequity in Houston – Landfills

Take Notes!

 

 
 
 
 

Week 11: Understanding Environmental Racism

 


Tuesday – Thursday 
11/7-11/9

in class

Workshop: Understanding Environmental Racism

Before Class

Read: Environmental Justice in Postwar America, Part Two “A More Inclusive Environmentalism 

Watch: Majora Carter, “Greening the Ghetto” 

Take Notes!

  
  

Week 12 : Poster presentations


Tuesday-Thursday

11/14/11/16


Week 13: research

Tuesday

11/21

Week 14: research PResentations

Tuesday – Thursday

11/28-11/30