If you can't make the office hours, we can arrange another time. The choice is endless. Environmental controversies have their roots in deep and often bitter disagreements about how different groups see nature, and how these groups envision the proper human relationship to nature. Such questions have critical implications for the land, and for the human communities that depend on that land.
Complicated relationships develop between ecosystems and human cultures.
And in turn, stories affect the ways people change the land. Trees get cut, grasslands get plowed, wilderness areas get established, and predators get eradicated, depending on the web of myths, stories, and perceptions people bring with them. The goal of this class is to explore these changing ideas about nature, in order to understand the roots of current environmental dilemmas. Case studies at the end of each segment will help us explore contemporary dimensions of issues in environmental humanities. Show how economic, political, and scientific paradigms have shaped changing ideas of nature.